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This looks like a good candidate for some spelt berries I’ve been meaning to use up. I just want to make sure I understand the recipe… There really isn’t any water added to the final dough? So the total recipe has over 600 grams of flour and less than 200 grams of water. Do I have that right?
Also, I might be 90-100 grams short of the amount of spelt called for. Can I make that up with a little whole wheat flour? Or should I scale the whole recipe down a little bit?
Thank you for catching that! 260g additional water – I’ll fix now.
I’d use wheat flour as a substitute for that portion of the flour since that will likely be easier than scaling down the recipe.
Hello I just added the hot water for the rye scald but I am a little confused l about the next step. Do I combine the scale with the levain, still rising, as soon as the scale is 90 degreees? Or do I let the scald sit for three hours minimum then add to the levain that’s ready? Thank you!
Sorry about the confusion.
Combine the scald and the levain to make the preferment when the latter is ripe. As long as the scald has had about 3 hours to sit, most of the sweet-flavor will have been generated. (You can even do the scald a day before and refrigerate it.)
Did you try the same recipe with a higher hydration? I find that spelt can take more water than people say - and that gives you a more open crumb.
Cathy
Got it thank you. I was confused by the note that said when it’s reached 90 degrees to mix it w the levain. Gonna try to do all through bulk tonight.
@cathy.elton I think you’re right that more water – and some stretching and folding, which I skipped – would make a more open crumb. I had a test bake with more water, but it also had more rye, so it was pretty goopy still.
@doughnut (I love that handle) I’ll reword a bit to make it more clear
I tried the same bread with home-milled rye and spelt, I placed the dough in the proofing basket in my refrigerator at 2:00 pm until 9:00 pm. I gave it an hour to get use to the kitchen temperature about 72 degrees.
My first loaf was dense, taste a bit gritty, and heavy. I followed the recipe in the newsletter, did a final proof in the fridg for 7 hours.Baked in cast-iron combo cooker .
any comments or suggestions .
I’m sorry your bread didn’t turn out taller and smoother in texture. I’ll make it again when I have spelt on hand and try to troubleshoot what might be the issue – and hopefully more people will try it and give feedback.
In terms of diagnostics, I guess I would start with the milling. Did you go with the finest of settings? (I also used home milled flour.)
Another question is about hydration and whether you used weight vs volume. The latter is fine, but trickier in my opinion, requiring some intuition like “this feels too dry, I’m gonna add a splash of water.”
When mixing up dough, I use grams and make conversions to cups for the recipe write-up. These volumes are approximations based on my assessment of a cup of flour being about 130 grams. Moreover, densely packed or super fluffed flour make a big difference in how much actual flour fits in a cup.
I’m guessing you’re also using Breadtopia berries? If not, that would add another variable – with different absorbency and strength characteristics of rye and spelt from different farms and harvest years.
A couple more variables are fermentation (over and under) and shaping (loose and tight). I try to give photos of the dough expansion for the former. For the latter, I would say I shaped this dough as tight as I could.
Hopefully some of these ideas help explain your outcome. Bread baking is so complicated though. I think that’s probably why it’s addictive 
I want to try again and again.
I have a photo of an earlier test of this recipe. I used more rye and water, and it was quite the flying saucer…and I had to try again lol
I did not use the fine milling because my Mockmill started humming when I started.I milled at a setting of 3 instead of my usual 1.5.
I will try another batch and re-grind the spelt to a grind of 1.5.
Also, do you think that it would be a good idea to do an overnight final proofing in the proofing basket?
I’m not sure what you mean by humming. In this Mockmill video, at minute 3:45, you can hear the fine setting of stones knocking. Regardless of number on the machine (because it tends to migrate) that’s about where you want to mill the flour.
I think a longer refrigerator final proof would be good as long as you end the bulk somewhere before 75% expansion of the dough.
I gotta say, I didn’t have great luck with this one. Like one of the other commentors said, my loaf had almost no rise and came out pretty dense. Also, at 500F, the loaf was starting to brown before the first 20 minutes was up. After another 10 minutes it was as brown as I let most of my loaves go, but the internal temp was only about 150F, so I let it go another 10 minutes. The internal temp still wasn’t quite 200F, but the bottom was getting a bit scorched, so I pulled it out. I milled my own grain (as fine as my KoMo would allow) and I measure everything by weight. I bake on a steel with pans/lava rocks for steam. My normal loaves get great rise with this method. If I were to try this loaf again, I’d bake at ~460F for the entire time as I think the crust got set at the higher temp before any oven spring happened.
I think your results look great – it’s simply a dense bread. Did you like the flavor? Or was it a take it or leave it thing?
Good idea to do a lower bake temp if your crust was setting quickly and getting too dark.
After I made my comment yesterday, I went back and looked at the pictures of your bread and realized that the crumb in mine does look similar to yours. I don’t often make 100% whole grain breads. And when I do, I think I tend to have unrealistic expectations about the rise and crumb. I do like the flavor and I will definitely eat it all, so thank you for the recipe!
Hello Melissa,
I tried your sourdough rye/spelt recipe that you recently put up. I do have a question or two and and observation :
Hi Gustav,
Good questions. For the levain, did it peak at less than doubled or did you decide to use it when it was still expanding because of timing? Honestly, I think either is fine.
The levain is just a medium in which the microbes are thriving and multiplying – and sometimes it’s densely packed with microbes and sometimes less so. As long as the final dough isn’t cut short, your flour is getting fermented.
As for overall timing, maybe you can mix the levain and scald in the morning. That way, the preferment is ripening mid-to-late afternoon, and the dough bulks in the evening. Use cold water at any of these points to slow things down.
I would probably cut back on the final dough’s water unless I was trying to hurry up the preferment (wetter mediums ferment faster).
Additional rye is definitely tasty, just beware of the lower gluten and potential for spread. I’m actually eating one of my test bakes that had more rye and too much water right now
You’re welcome! Whole grain expectation are different for sure, and especially when you use wheats other than hard red or hard white.
I keep getting a dense bread with this recipe but now the crumb is more open. i think that it is possibly the most delicious bread that I have made.
I suspect that my milling technique is to blame so I purchased Spelt flour and rye flour from Moxie bread in Boulder Colorado. the stone ground flour is ground on the location. I have seen the milling area. They offered to let me buy the wheat berries and they will grind it for me to insure that it is all fresh.
I am watching the proofing times to prevent over-proofing.
