100% Einkorn with Hazelnut Bread

and yes, I find it lightly bitter.  Very nutty.  Well, I did add hazel nuts...  I have been using Einkorn in most everything instead of AP flour.  Hadn't made a pure loaf of it until today.

I prefer Spelt myself.  I think the trick with this low gluten flour is to make a 5% water roux.  I have been working with this recipe since Thursday.  Apparently I had a poorly copied version of Eli Rogosa's method of making Einkorn bread.  Her's takes 5 days.  I kept extending the two day recipe I was using because it seemed too "unripe."   When I found her recipe this evening, there was an "AHA!" moment.  I will keep the Einkorn starter going until it IS ready and try again.  

I had listless sticky firm dough and that's not the way to go with this weak flour.  I even found studies where testing was done  with 48% hydration because Einkorn absorbs so little water.  True but like rye, conventional wheat wisdom is it's doom.  "Makes a thick firm dough."  (Stay away from those recipes!)  I even pinched off a piece of dough and baked it to see if it would spring in the oven.  It didn't.  Hockey puck all the way, real stick to your ribs type dough.  

That's when I decided high hydration in the name of water roux (Tangzhong) with malt and bubbling instant yeast was today's solution.  (Bob and I have been discussing these low hydration Einkorn doughs and he's had little luck with them.) I now had a thoroughly re-mixed sticky patz that filled the form half full (for the second time.)  I quickly placed the top half of the mould over the filled bottom, waited 15 minutes and stuck the form into a 160°C oven with the temperature rising.  (Praying and hoping it wouldn't ooze out of the form at the midline.)  When it hit 220°C 20 minutes later, I counted off 15 more minutes and lowered the oven to 200°C for the rest of the hour.  Pulled it out, took off the top and, Wow, took a picture.  Inside temp of 100°C or 212°F.  The oven spring had doubled the size of the dough.

I will try something closer to this recipe next time.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/qampa-with-a-back-to-the-roots-grain-grower-319993/?no-ist

that grows on you.  Sort of like that first sip of beer.  My tongue tingles a little but that might be that crusty crust.  It's dark here already but I'll see what I can do about a crumb shot.    Still want to bake a choco-cherry cake tonight.  It's already 7:30 pm.  

I like mixing a flat dough with a frothy Tangzhong to get a fast reaction.  I'm tempted to try it with other doughs.  Autolyse a firm dough for a day or so and have a roux on "standby"  then when wanting to bake it in a hurry.  (like within an hour or two)  Put the 2% instant yeast into the microwave warmed roux, stir in a teaspoon of malt and wait 5 minutes.  Pour the frothy roux onto the dough, add salt and squish it in.  Shape or throw it into a well greased pan, slash, cover, and into the preheating oven.    Could I make starch (total gluten free) rise?  Hmmmm.  ???   

it is firm, like any regular bread here in Austria made with whole flour.  Moist too.  Maybe this second photo is better although the top is out of focus.  Dolly just loves it and I don't find it too bitter.  :)   Maybe our local flour had a good year.  

with time.   Can't make it out today, one day later.  I bagged it overnight to move the moisture to the crust.

(edited for clarity, replaced "it" with "bitter."

Freezes nicely.  Wrapped and waited a day for the crumb moisture to even out in the crumb, then sliced the loaf and froze most of it.  Take out a slice when desired and microwave or thaw out over my hot coffee.  Very nice!  No traces of any "bitter" that I can find.   Keep a lot of bread this way (frozen in zipper bags)  makes for quite a selection.  

I'm running a little test tube race between 10g each 100% hydration einkorn dough.  23°C

1. One is just flour & water (the control)
2. The second has a pea size ball of einkorn sourdough mixed in
3. Third one has a tiny bit of IDY (yeast) 

I covered them with foil and waiting to see how high they rise and if they ever fall.  We all know the IDY will rise the fastest but I really want to know if einkorn falls apart and when it happens.  Maybe it takes thousands of years.  When is it over-proofed? 

1) Control behaved like one, did nothing we could see with the naked eye.  no rise or increase in volume in 16 hrs.

2) Sourdough doubled in 5 hrs and remained domed, 11 hours later slightly higher but levelled out at 2.1 times the original volume.  (no observation made during the night)

3) IDY doubled in 30 minutes, peaked in 4 hours at 2.5 times o.v. and levelled out at the 5th hour.  At which it promptly fell 10 minutes later.  it was then stirred.  11 hours later it was at double and still domed.

18 hours into the experiment  all samples were stirred for thickness, compared with each other for colour and taste.

1) Medium thick paste, taste bland slightly sweet

2) SD  Thinner paste than the Control,  lighter in colour than Control,  taste is sour lightly nutty

3) IDY  Medium thick paste as thick as control, lighter in colour than the Control but darker than SD sample, taste a little bitter fruity.

Conclusions:  Einkorn dough raised with einkorn SD culture feels thinner or wetter when fermented than  einkorn dough leavened with IDY.    Einkorn dough fermented with IDY is just as thick as einkorn dough without any leaven.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/321472#comment-321472

Wet wrung out cotton gloves.  It's a miracle!  

Whole Einkorn and Rye work very well together.  Got a loaf being eaten up as I type.  It rose so well it rose into my aluminium foil cover where is stuck quite nicely. (drat)  It's the 500g flour recipe I'm playing around with using a 5% water roux.  Lovely!  

...can cut right away when it's cool!  Soft too!  Oh so soft!  How did I do that!  40% rye, 60% einkorn, buttermilk (Hi, Karen)

First feed an Einkorn starter:  about 40 to 50g of ripe refrigerated starter,  add 50g Einkorn flour and about 100g water crumble in 50g of day old einkorn or rye bread.  I used rye/wheat I happen to have. It should be wet enough to see bubbles forming and rising between the bready lumps.   Now let it stand out 21°C for 4 to 8 hrs or when it's good and bubbly and smelling like a sourdough starter, use or chill it until you want to mix up the dough in the next two days.   (yes, einkorn starter is great for the person who never wants to plan a bake to a tight schedule.  Didn't take me long to figure out that one!)

The dough:

• 200g fine Rye flour 
• 275g fine Einkorn flour
• 225g  Einkorn starter (lumpy/gloppy thickish batter) 
• 8.6g salt
• 300 to 325g   one whole egg + some old sour buttermilk 
• a Tablespoon of bread spice (optional)

Mix this all together to form a paste or dough adding buttermilk if needed until all flour is moistened, no kneading, cover and let ferment 21°C  for about 4 hours.  It should swell up a bit and smell fragrant.  Chill in the refrigerator.  Mine went overnight. It should double in size.  If not let it stand out until it does.  (I took the dough out at 7am but didn't get around to adding the roux until 10:30am. Busy doing other stuff and forgot the dough.) (it happens)

When ready to bake, turn on the oven to 210°C, place a pan of water to preheat with the oven.  Now make a :

Water roux

• In a microwave safe dish, blend 25g of whole Einkorn flour with 125g of water, let rest to hydrate the flour 15 min before heating 3 x 30 sec on high stirring between zaps until just thickened.  Let cool.  
• While still slightly warm add 3g instant yeast and fold into the dough.  (so far this is optional but using for insurance)
• Grease and flour (rye) a bread pan and spoon in dough until half full.  Shape and dome with a wet spatula.  
• Let pan stand 10 minutes while you cover with a layer of greased foil ( or use a second pan)  leaving plenty of room for a doubling rise.
• Pop into a hot steamy oven second rack from the bottom, set timer for 1 hour and do something better with your time.  I went out into the garden.  
• Remove foil and brown top for another 10 to 15 minutes.  Inside temp should be up to 100°C or 212°F    
• Brush with boiled water if desired to soften crust.  Cool on rack.  

I used a 2kg pan which is a tad too big for this amount of dough.  A smaller pan or more dough will get a taller loaf.

I put a bunch of starters into deep sleep before heading off to Laos for a year.  I took some of the starters with me and I left those in Austria to chance family and the refrigerator.  Upon my return,  I discovered most of my refrigerator starters unrecognisable.  Most were black and covered with mould and strangely squishy instead of firm.  I dumped all of them except for two;  half of a dry rye ball (hard as a little rock) and an Einkorn starter that might have survived partially the torture and abuse.  They were hiding in a compartment with the nail polish.  

So I did find two of my refrigerator starters still intact after the refrigerator had been off for well over a week. (I will get a confession later.)  Strange enough, the two survivors were extremely dry (we're talking prepared as crumbs barely held together by mature starter)  and packed in plastic bags.  The others had their own single jars, each having a bed of flour and sealed tightly.  Right away I suspected a warm spell as all of them were badly deteriorated.  

The Einkorn starter was prepared Nov 22 of last year.  I cut away all the funny outside sections to get at the core and it is soaking in water with a small addition of fresh flour now 12 hrs.  The only flour that didn't go rancid was my Einkorn flour packed inside a glass with a tight rubber/glass seal.  I'm using it to restart the Einkorn starter and prepare it for another long stint in the refrigerator (hiding with the nail polish.)  My whole Einkorn grains are in excellent shape and after soaking some overnight (discarded the water) and cooking them this morning, made a nice sweet breakfast.  No bitter, no need for added sugar.  The flour on the other hand was not bitter but it stuck to the roof of my mouth like plaster.  Must have been very dry. Took a while to work it off.  I was in the process of dumping it when I tasted it.  My Kamut and Grunkern berries still seem to be in order. I can't say the same for nuts, red rice, the other whole flours & pumpkin seeds.  Still wondering about the chia seeds.  The popcorn was tasty.  The bread cubes made a nice warm fire.  

Flour by the way, is explosive if thrown into a fire so they went into the composting collection service.  The birds are looking over the nuts.

overnight in cold water.  Drained in the morning and rinsed the whole gran before adding clean water and a pinch of salt.  Boiled and simmered until tender.   Lovely sweet cereal.  I ate with milk but a little cream would be nicer.  No sugar needed.  No bitterness that I could detect.  

Glad to find this mention of the half sphere of dried rye starter in the comments above (Nov, 2016.)   Took it out of the fridge last weekend and feeding the rock hard bit back to health.  It was speckled with brown dots and smelling like marmite.  All the labels fell off so I wasn't sure how old it was. Knew it was old. Made in 2015?  Six years? It doubled today after a discard and feeding, still rising and finally smelling like my 'ol rye starter.  Good to know.  It might be a new starter or part of the old one but having a backup gives a little bit of kick to hurry the wee beasties along their chain reaction journey. Dead yeast cells make good yeast food and the pH should be starting out lower than when mixing just water and flour.

Started out just hydrating it with a little water and when soft stirred in a little rye flour.  Been adding a spoonful of flour and water as needed (just like starting a new starter) every day. Sniffing at the aromas and watching changes before feeding.  

My einkorn starter has sat a long time in the fridge between bakes.  I poured the dark hootch and let the flour goop on the bottom slowly run out of the jar as I scooped up some bottom sediments with a long clean spoon.  In two days with careful small additions each day, the spoonful was smelling like it should.  It is dramatic in the sense that it goes from a "not sure if it is good" to "oh, yes, it's changed and much better."  So if the starter isn't smelling or behaving right, give it more fermenting time.  The same goes for einkorn sourdough bread dough.  If the flour is not rancid, and the dough is rising but not smelling like a dough should, let it ferment longer.  

Got lots of fermenting going on in the kitchen at the moment. Not too unusual this time of year.