Its become traditional to add honey to spelt breads. They compliment each other. I suppose because honey is normally added some recipes might have evolved to adding sugar but neither is necessary and feel free to make it pure spelt, water and salt. Just bear in mind that if you simply take the honey out of a recipe you’re following then it may feel dryer so compensate with more water.
Great flavor and texture! Made 2 batches and had to decrease the H20 by 20% and handled better and the texture was wonderful.
Your breads are beautiful but I’m really fascinated by your “Dutch ovens”. Did you make those? They look truly unique. They obviously keep the steam in given how nice your breads look. A nice alternative to Le Creuset!
Thank you! I have about 10 cloches - 2 in Incline Village, NV, 2 in Kauai and 6 in Northern California. I had mine custom made by my hanai brother in Kauai. His name is Dean Mcraine and he owns Lightwave pottery. He didn’t even know what a cloche was until drew and described it to him. He can ship. Excellent baking properties.
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Love these beautiful spelt loaves. I have been making spelt bread for some of my grandchildren who are wheat intolerant. They taste good but I’m getting very little oven spring.
I am using a whole grain spelt for the starter and am also having trouble getting the starter to double when fed, and a bit of it in water will not float.
I’m thinking to add some honey to the starter to give it a bit more food. Has anyone else had this problem? Is everyone else using a white flour starter?
Please help!
Hi Dave3598, I’m new to baking and this site. I have only made 6 or 7 loaves of bread and this Spelt recipe is my favorite so far with rye a close 2nd. I’m using a rye starter that evolved from a whole wheat starter.
( 2 oz wheat starter, 2 oz water 2oz rye flour). Here is my latest loaf.
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Thanks IceHart, I have heard that Rye and Wheat flour make a good starter. Your loaf looks good, certainly better raised than mine. Maybe I’ll see if I can get hold of some Rye flour. I just haven’t been able to get the Spelt starter to perform well.
I apologize if these questions have already been asked in the forum.
I noticed that the no kneed bread recipe cooks for 34 mins@500 (17 lid on 17 lid off), but this spelt recipe is for 45 mins@450 (35 lid on). How critical is that difference? Do some grains need to be cooked slower than others / hotter than others, etc to get to the same dryness/browness?
I’ve been using a clay cooker for all of my bread so far, but today I thought I’d try making a round loaf, but only have a dutch oven (enameled iron). Do I need to adjust temperature or time for dutch oven vs clay?
Thanks so much! We got into bread baking due to world events (COVID19), but enjoyed the sourdough, and variants so much, we haven’t bought a loaf in 3 months!
Dan
Got the spelt flour for the spelt ciabatta. Failed miserably. 
But I love this recipe! Can’t wait for your book to come out.
@dcogan Hi – I’m sorry for the late reply. I think the time difference you are seeing in that is possibly because of the oblong vessel. Heat penetrates the center of that shape loaf a bit faster.
Either way, ovens and baking vessels can differ so much, you have to kinda know your own oven and have a probe thermometer if possible.
Also bread type is relevant…a loaded cranberry walnut takes a long time to cook thru in my experience.
To answer your last question, I do adjust the temperature down for cast iron (475 ish) and I also often put a piece of folded foil under the dough/parchment from the start, and sometimes also a baking sheet directly under the base of the pan about 20-25 minutes in.
@panvega I’m so glad you’re enjoying Eric’s recipe here. I love it too. I agree the spelt ciabatta is a tremendous workout. And I’ll admit that though I enjoyed the challenge of making that recipe and bread, I haven’t repeated it much.
I may try this recipe with spelt soon, at 50% of the flour weight, though, not 100%.
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Just made these with homemilled spelt but 50% whole spelt (100% hydration) and 50% bread flour (82% hydration). It was a real challenge keeping the loaf vertical. It was spreading a lot.
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Hi! My sourdough spelt is just about ready to pop in the oven…However, I’m having doubts about its success. The dough felt great last night, but this morning when I tried to shape into a ball, it just wanted to gradually spread out into a flat disc. Any help out there?
Spelt tends to spread and over-fermented spelt even more so. You may be experiencing just the normal extensibility of spelt, though. You could pop your proofing basket into the freezer for 20 minutes before baking and that might stiffen up the dough a little bit.
Based on when you posted this question, I’m guessing you’ve already baked the bread though. How did it turn out?
Pretty flat, ha! It tastes great and actually doesn’t have too bad of a crumb. It just didn’t do much otherwise.
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@ranischrock I’ve never baked with spelt but that looks pretty to me. My bake today (organic bread flour and hard white wheat berries I milled fresh) ended up being a bit on the flat side, LOL. So I hear you! Here’s to our flatter but tasty loaves.
Leah
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That will make nice toast sticks and I bet it’s delicious. I’m guessing next time, a shorter fermentation will help.
Thanks for the help! My faith in my bread baking skills have been renewed 
Hi Eric. As with many people I started baking with sourdough starter due to the pandemic. I became very comfortable with basic sourdough recipes and now I’m venturing out. I noticed this recipe has weighted measures for the flour, salt and water but traditional American measures for the sweetener and starter. What would the equivalent metric measure be for the 1/4 cup starter? Thank you!
The recipe has starter measured as 1/4 cup. How much weight in grams is that equal to?