Rome wasn’t baked in a day

This is a sad looking loaf, but the loaf is not sad, it’s just made of spelt flour. I wanted to try something different because nothing says “move on to a different kind of bread” like achieving a more or less serviceable looking sourdough loaf. I used the same starter I have but made the levain with rye. I used all spelt flour, auto-lysed for 25 minutes, though I was informed by Rin that I should have auto-lysed for longer due to spelt’s characteristics. While “doubling” in size isn’t terribly difficult to tell should one using a four quart cambro, for some reason I decided to use a 12 quart cambro so the dough was swimming in it and I found it hard to quage change in size. Nor did I get much help from bubbles as spelt flour produces a more closed crumb without the help of yeast.

When I first mixed the levain and dough it was incredibly sticky and even after the fourth fold, though I could see gluten development, the dough was still more sticky than any sourdough I’ve made and was sticking to my hands. After eight hours proving I used the soft scraper to get the dough out and turned and folded it. Even after proving the dough was highly sticky. Rin has told me that “Dough can sense your fear”, and in this case the spelt dough’s fear sensor must have been firing because the tackiness of the dough unnerved me enough that I completely forgot to score the top. As before, I heated the dutch oven to 500 degrees then baked the bread at 450 on the center rack with the baking steel on the bottom rack. I baked for 30 minutes with the top on and 25 minutes with the top off.

The bread ended up quite good, if dense. Next time I make a spelt loaf I intend to split 50 / 50 spelt and use instant yeast to see if I can get a more open crumb.

I mixed and proved the dough in the same cambro. While economical, this is not the first time this has had a negative affect, slight but non-zero. What happens is that during mixing some unincorporated dough sticks to the side of the cambro, dries out, and forms a jagged cliff that catches the dough when it is being removed after the bulk proof. From now on I will either use a bowl or one cambro to mix the dough and a second cambro for the bulk proof.

Dough
500 g spelt
375 g h2o
75% hydration
10 g salt

Levain
10 g starter
50 g rye
70 g water

What I did right:
I tried something new.
What I did wrong:
I forgot to score the top, I need to push the bulk proof longer.
What I learned:
Spelt needs a little help, next time I’ll add some Instant Dried Yeast to open the crumb.