Einkorn and Spelt Sourdough Boule

Step 0: Prepping the Starter

If you don’t already have a starter, you’re going to want to get one going at least a week before your first bake. Since this loaf is going to be primarily einkorn, I would suggest prepping a specific einkorn starter. I don’t have any data to back this up, but my thought is that the bacteria in your starter is going to proliferate across your entire loaf. It would seem to follow that it may be best to seed your dough with a colony of bacteria that is proven to be suited to the environment you are introducing it to. It is not by any means necessary to have an einkorn starter. If you have another starter going, by all means use that, but if you’re interested in experimenting it’s always easy enough to get a new starter going.

Day 1: Thoroughly combine 45g of body temperature, non-chlorinated water with 60g of einkorn flour in a mason jar. Cover with a tea towel and leave out for 48 hours. Day 3: Add 30g of water and 60g of einkorn flour and mix together as thoroughly as possible. This will be an uncommonly stiff starter. That’s fine, just go with it. Cover, and leave out for 24 hours. Every Day For the Rest of Your Life: Take 10g of starter, 30g of water, and 60g of einkorn flour and mix. Cover and wait 24 hours.

After your starter is healthy and active, making lots of bubbles, and almost doubling in size within six hours of it’s last feeding, you’re good to go. At this point you can put your starter in the refrigerator and decrease your feeding to once or twice a week if you you don’t bake more than once a week. If your starter has been refrigerated, pull it out a couple of days before baking. This may be important because different bacteria respond differently to changes in temperature. The ratio of bacteria in your starter will be different coming out of the refrigerator then if it had been kept at room temperature, so giving your colony some time to reach equilibrium could effect rise and flavor.

Don’t forget to feed the starter daily when it’s out of the refrigerator. Try to time it so that the last feeding is 5–8 hours before starting the levain so that the bacteria is around peak activity.

Step 1: Making the Levain

Making levain is functionally just a final pre-bake feeding for the starter, designed to quickly accelerate the growth of bacteria, while making the spongy starter into a consistency that is easier to incorporate homogeneously into the dough.

30g Einkorn Starter 120g Water at around body temp 70g All-Purpose Einkorn Flour (Jovial) 40g Sprouted Whole Grain Spelt Flour (Thrive Market)

Add the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Big enough to prevent overflow when the levain expands. Stir thoroughly, trying to break up the lumps as much as you can. The goal is to disperse the bacteria in the starter as evenly as possible across the levain. Seal the bowl tightly, set in a dark area, and wait for around 6 to 10 hours.

Step 2: Making the Dough

After 6 to 10 hours the volume of your levain should have doubled, and it should have a sticky bubbly consistency. If your levain is looking good, you’re ready to mix up some dough.

All of the Levain From the Previous Step 335g Water 350g All-Purpose Einkorn Flour 190g Sprouted Whole Grain Spelt Flour 16g Sea Salt

Add the water and the levain to a large bowl, and mix until the levain is fairly evenly distributed. Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and mix until most of the flour has incorporated. Your dough should be very sticky. I’ve had the best success using stiff silicone spatulas for working with sticky doughs. Cover the bowl with a plate or towel and let sit for around 15 minutes.

Step 3: Turning the Dough

After 15min use a bowl scraper or spatula to transfer the sticky dough out of the bowl onto a floured work surface. I’d suggest using spelt flour for the work surface, it’s a little bit less eager to immediately incorporate into the dough. To turn the dough, just press it into a rough square shape, then one at a time fold each side of the square in to the middle of the dough and press. Return the dough to your bowl, cover, and wait 15min. You will repeat this process two more times.

Make dough and let sit 15min Turn and let sit 15min Turn and let sit 15min Turn then bulk ferment 3–5 hours

This is not kneading, the goal is not to stretch the dough. Einkorn has a weak short-chain sort of gluten that generally prefers not to be kneaded too much. The goal of this process is simply to maximize proliferation of the bacteria by knocking back a little bit of gas, regulating temperature, and introducing the bacteria to fresh food. This page is a great little guide to folding dough. After your third round of folding, transfer the dough back to your bowl, seal tightly, and allow the bread to sit and ferment for 3 to 5 hours. It should raise by around 25–35%, a straight walled bowl can make this easier to gauge visually.

Step 4: Shaping the Loaf

Turn your raised dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Grab the edges of the dough at one inch intervals, pull the edge to the center of the dough and press enough so that the edge sticks. Continue to do this all the way around the edge until you have a tight little ball with a seam in the middle. Flip the dough over so that the seam is on the work surface. Cup the ball of dough in your hands like you are about to pick it up, then spin and drag the dough around the work surface until you feel the bottom of the dough start to grab the work surface. This whole process is a lot easier to understand with visual instructions, this video is great.

The reason we do this is to build some surface tension on the outside of the dough, so when the dough goes into the oven and begins to rise it will expand up rather than out. Think of it like a cup of water in a small balloon versus a larger balloon. The smaller balloon takes on a rounder shape because the elastic tension in the rubber quickly reaches equilibrium with the gravitational force pulling the water down. Shaping adds elastic tension to the outside surface of your ball of dough. It’s like shrinking the balloon.

When your dough looks like a taught, fluffy little bubble with a roughly 6 inch diameter, heavily dust the top of the dough with flour and gently place it seam up in a lightly floured proofing basket, or a medium sized bowl lined with a lightly floured linen cloth. Cover your dough with a tea towel and proof for around 90 minutes.

Step 5: Get Baked

When you have around an hour of proofing time left, place your baking vessel on the center rack of the oven and pre-heat to 500 degrees. I’d suggest a pizza stone or a stoneware roasting pan. When you have about 10 minutes of proofing time left, take a roasting pan, place it in the oven, and fill it with about an inch of hot water. This makes a bunch of steam which retards the creation of the crust during the first several minutes of the bake so that the loaf can expand before it begins to harden up and loose its elasticity.

When the dough is done proofing carefully flip the dough out of the proofing basket or bowl on to your preheated baking surface. Quickly take a fresh razor blade and score the top of your dough. This helps the loaf to continue to raise as the crust begins to form, and keeps the crust from cracking randomly. Put your scored dough in the oven and decrease the temperature to 450 degrees.

After 40 minutes take a look at your loaf. If you’d like a darker crust give it another five or ten minutes. Otherwise it should be ready to go. To check if it’s done just lift up an edge of the loaf and tap the bottom. If it’s done, it should produce a hollow knocking sound. If you get a dull thud, quickly pop the loaf back in the oven and give it another tap in five minutes.

Step 6: Just Look At It For a While

After the loaf comes out of the oven, place it on a cooling rack, or some other surface that allows for air flow all around. Now leave it alone for at least a couple of hours! You have to allow time for chemical reactions to finish, elastic membranes to solidify, fats to regain some solidity, etc. The loaf doesn’t stop cooking just because you stopped adding heat.

After a couple hours of rest it’s time for the big reveal. Slice your loaf in half with a serrated knife and take a look at the inside. The inside should have a fairly even distribution of medium sized bubbles and air pockets across the entire interior.