Thank you, Melissa!
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Hi Jane,
My neighbor uses a 3 1/2 qt Staub cast iron Dutch oven and baked this loaf for me today. It turned out wonderfully. I took pictures but do not know how to load them here. Try it in your Le Creuset. I think you’ll be pleased.
Olga
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This was the most challenging bread I’ve made to date. (Made version 2)
Thank you for not just the awesome recipe but for one that was easy to follow and the pictures that made it possible to keep on and not give up!
The bread turned out great. Lots of nice air pockets. Tastes great with a lovely nutty flavor and with a good crust.
I was not sure how many time to fold during the 5 hours so did about 8 folds. The rest was as written.
It’s wonderful to hear that you enjoyed the bread and found the recipe instructions helpful. And congratulations on taking on the extra challenging formula.
@Fermentada I’ve made this bread twice now, and am completely in love with the flavor! I used the lower hydration version, but will try the higher hydration eventually. I’ve been using my batard clay baker, and while I get nice oven spring, and a decent crumb, my scoring is atrocious. I tried to mimic your wheat design and completely failed - LOL Today I am going to try baking in my oblong clay baker and see what the difference is. I also love your Kamut recipe, which I’ve done 50/50 with Kamut and Bread flour, also one of my go-to’s. Mainly, I have to thank you for your videos of the different types of gluten development. They make it so easy to follow, and I am now capable of laminating and coil folding - so exciting!
That is a fantastic loaf! The color and crumb are amazing. I have score blowouts too : )
Here’s the pattern I still have the most trouble with. In this loaf, I practically got an ear from a cut I didn’t even make.
I’m glad you’ve found the gluten development videos helpful. You may have already seen it, but here’s a similar blog post with videos on scoring.
The main takeaway for doing decorative wheatstalks is to make the ear slash quite deep and the wheatstalk shallow, particularly the stem should be almost a tracing.
The baker who illustrates that approach the best imo is @danlarn on Instagram. Here’s a video post of his.
Thanks for sharing the photo of a blowout - makes me hopeful if they even happen to you! And thanks for the links also. So great to have such helpful teachers on this forum.
Strangely, my first attempt at this bread was my best (beginner’s luck?) in terms of crumb. Just made one yesterday, and while it was tasty, the crumb was more dense. I think maybe I overproofed the bulk fermentation due to timing issues with having to get dinner ready at the same time that I should have baked the loaf. But at least it’s not a brick!
Off topic because this is not a spelt/kamut bread (but is 100%whole grain) but I had to send this photo of a recent bake that had a mind of its own despite my three cross slashes! Great crumb though.
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Wow, just like mine. It must be something with the cross scoring on oblong loaves. Too much pressure going up and/or no way to expand laterally maybe.
@j4m3s4j, whom I mention in the recipe post above as inspiring this wheat combination, just posted about whole grain pizza made with spelt and Kamut.
I thought I’d share a link to the photos and formula in this thread. It sounds delicious and makes sense from the structure/gluten standpoint, with spelt bringing extensibility to the dough and khorasan/Kamut adding protein/strength.
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Here is the formula for the pizza Melissa mentioned:
248g Water (72.1%)
44g Starter (100% hydration) (12.8%)
172g Milled Spelt (50%)
172g Milled Kamut (aka Khorasan)
(50%)
7g Salt (Pink Salt) (2%)
I mix everything together. Give it a couple rounds of strength and conditioning, then wait for the bulk to complete. Which for this seems to be when it has nearly doubled. I then divide and shape into 2 balls and store in the fridge. This formula seems to be on the edge of over fermenting at about 2 days in the fridge.
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Your bread looks amazing!! I’ven been “trying” to bake with freshly milled spelt for several months now. Most of my bread spreads out like a pancake in the oven. The flavor is very good though. Sometimes I do get some oven spring but nothing like yours. What am I doing wrong??? Could I use 100% spelt flour? Do you think if I follow your recipe. Was the version with lower hydration sour? I really want to bake a loaf using only three ingredients. I hope you can help me out!!!
Thanks,
Nickie
Thank you. I’ve baked with spelt a lot and my early experiences making ciabatta with it were like a trial by fire. Or more accurately: trial by crawling amoeba masquerading as dough.
So yes, spelt is very spready and works best at a lowish hydration. If you want to convert this recipe to be all spelt, I’d drop the hydration down to the low 70s.
350-370g water for the 500g home-milled whole grain spelt flour. The dough should hold it’s shape better when closer to 70% hydration.
Floppy dough is also sometimes caused by overfermentation, so make sure to keep a close eye on your dough. Don’t let it expand all the way to doubling and don’t let it blow out of the proofing basket.
Good luck! I’d love to hear how it goes.
Thanks for all your help!!! I just baked a loaf using your recipe with 100% spelt with 70% hydration (Eric’s recipe). It’s still kind of flat but this is the first time that I get ab ear. I’m pretty happy!!
I will try your spelt/kamut recipe tomorrow and let you know.
I made many crawling amoeba masquerading as dough:joy:
That looks really good! Perfect really. Congratulations on the ear!
Melissa, thanks!!! I cut the bread this morning. The crumb is tight. What can I do to improve it? I guess you can tell that I’m a novice baker. I’m in love with sourdough baking.
I think that crumb is close to the most open crumb that’s possible with whole spelt flour. Optimizing gluten development and fermentation are the main things to play with now, assuming you’re getting a very fine milling of flour from your grain mill.
This article might have some tips that could help.
Thanks!!!
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