Whole Spelt 67% Whole Kamut 33% Sourdough 92% hydration
I haven’t had tons of success with spelt in any great quantity, but didn’t want to give up on this ancient grain. It seems to taste good when paired with Kamut aka khorasan also an ancient grain. Gluten is made up of gliadin and glutenin. Gliadin is the substance that gives the stretchy feel to dough, and glutenin provides the elasticity and the structure to ensure that it holds its shape. While wheat has a balance of gliadin to glutenin , spelt has a higher ratio of gliadin to glutenin. This makes the gluten in it much more fragile, which means it breaks down more easily. To try to combat this I’ve added vital wheat gluten to try to help improve the quality of the gluten in this bread.
I once again sifted the bran out in order to develop the gluten in the sifted flours separately. However, this didn’t go exactly as planned. I decided to sift both the whole spelt and whole Kamut, but I didn’t take into account the larger particle size of Kamut. As a result quite a bit of the Kamut ended up being sifted out with the bran. I went ahead and scalded the bran/Kamut with 200% by weight of boiling water. Unlike the fluffy bran that usually results from this scald, the bran/Kamut scald was much heavier so definitely had Kamut flour in it in addition to the flours.
As a result of such a great portion of the water going into the scald, there was much less water to hydrate the levain and sifted flours, the hydration would have been far to low. So instead of the planned 80% hydration I gradually added water when mixing the levain and flours and the resultant hydration of this bread went up to 92%, which was much much higher than I thought would work for a spelt loaf.
Whole Spelt 325 g
Whole Kamut 117 g
VWG 17 g
Salt 9.7 g
Levain build overnight 76ºF 60% hydration
Starter 11 g + Water 26 g + Whole Kamut 44
10 hours pH 4.17 in the morning at mix.
Scalded Bran
Bran sifted 124 g and 248 g boiling water then refrigerated overnight
Dough mix in AM
174 g water, 9.7 g salt and all levain - break down levain in water
Next add sifted mix of spelt, Kamut and Vital wheat gluten rested 15 mins. Kneaded to moderate development.
Add scalded bran/kamut through a series of stretch and folds in the bowl and then kneaded on the counter to fully incorporate. Rest 30 mins. pH 5.5
Bench letterfold pH 5.5
Then a series of coil folds every 30 mins x 3.5 (the last set was a half coil) pH falling from 5.5 to 5.25 after the last half coil.
Shaping was done when the pH reached a delta of 1.0 or pH 4.5. Placed in a banneton and allowed bench proofing until pH reached 4.22 then placed in freezer until oven heated to 500ºF for baking.
Bake with steam x 25 mins
This is where I made another error, I was distracted and forgot to drop the temperature during the bake so rather than my usual 450ºF then 420-425ºF the temperature stayed at 500ºF for the whole of the bake. When I realized this there was 5-10 mins left of baking but I noticed how dark the crust was and pulled the rather dark loaf out of the oven. I wonder if the oven spring could have been better if I had baked at a lower temperature?
In any event, decent oven spring with very little spread, so I’m not too mad about this bake.
Comments
Oven spring time lapse video.
You're one or 1.5 up on me. Barely ever used spent, and then only a small percentage, and never used Kamut. You're way more experimental than I'll ever be.
After a while, your bakes are so consistent that, it is hard to tell one from another. That's a good thing!
Love watching the time lapse (Wasn't that in "Rocky Horror"? Let's do the Time Lapse). Watching the birth of a bread as it comes alive. Another in a long line of winners.
You are far too kind Alan. I like to experiment, through experimenting we learn and often suffer along the way 😂.
You seem to know a lot of movie references that I would never know, in fact I don’t think I’ve even watched Rocky Horror start to end 😜
Benny
Crumb photos. As expected with my bran Kamut scald aka Yudane, the crumb is very even. Nothing wrong with that unless that wasn’t what you were going for 😂😂. Next time I will sift only the spelt and not bother sifting the courser Kamut.
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Benny, nicely baked. Experimentation is the forge of learning, and you have inspired me to make the honey spelt loaf I last baked in September. I have a fair amount of grain leftover and I loved the flavour. Your loaf looks delicious.
Cheers,
Gavin.
Experimentation through error Gavin LOL. Despite the errors which in the end turned out alright, the bread tasted great and made good roast Turkey sandwiches for dinner.
Benny
Yep. Definitely not the crumb you were going for. Probably best if you just send that one to me. 😉
Beautiful loaf Benny. Has a very nice bloom and I agree it may have gone even more at a slightly lower temp. Nice change in technique too adjusting for the flour type. Well done!
Thank you Troy very kind of you to say. I’d be happy to share some, minus the four slices we used to make sandwiches for dinner. I actually sliced this one while still a bit warm, wow warm bread, yumm. I’ll try this again with modifications, the flavour of spelt and kamut are so good that it is worth repeating hopefully without the mistakes 😜
glad you experiment Bennie… helps all of us!
Thank you Caroline, the bread did taste great so as you say that is most important. I can now say that I have experienced the effects of using an Yudane on this type of bread, it does allow a higher hydration and gives a more even crumb.
Benny
Glad to see your spelt success. Well done!
Found the comment about crumb eveness (and openess?) with yudane to be thought provoking.
-Jon
It will be interesting to try this bake again with just a bran scald and not a yudane to compare the relative openness of the crumb. I suspect that having more gelatinized starch in the dough, in a way similar to gelatinized starch (pentosans) in rye, result in a similar crumb as rye breads. However, the wrench in the comparison would be the hydration of course. I doubt I could bake a spelt loaf at such a high hydration without the yudane, but we shall see.
Benny
Hi! Really appreciate your experiments been following along and think I want to try the pH method you’re using. I bake with mostly whole grains, home milled, ancient grains, so a lot of the advice about fermentation is less helpful than I would like.
Can you explain how you measure during bulk? Are you using a separate piece of dough to test or are you probing the bulk dough? And similarly, how are you testing the shaped loaf?
Lastly.. do you find certain whole grains behave differently re Ph during overnight cold retard?
thanks in advance! val
Hi Val, thanks for your interest in pH monitoring for bulk fermentation and final proof. Because my Hanna pH better has a pencil thickness probe, I don't want to stab the dough during bulk and especially after shaping. Instead after the first fold, I remove a small amount say 30 g and place it in a small container that I levain in direct contact with the main dough that way it should follow the temperature changes of the main dough relatively well. So each time I fold the dough during bulk I will check the pH of the aliquot of dough. I continue these measurements even after final shaping again measuring the aliquot of dough I keep next to the banneton with the shaped dough.
I didn't have a ton of luck when baking 100% whole red fife using a cold retard, so now that I've had some success when baking 100% whole wheat without a cold retard, I have continued to bake after final proof is completed.
Benny
Thanks, appreciate this