100% Fresh-Milled Einkorn Sourdough Bread

Step 1: Add the fresh-milled einkorn flour and 410g water to a large bowl. Mix until there are no dry patches of flour (Image 1). If you need more water for the dough to come together, slowly start adding, bit by bit, the remaining 20g water (add only as much as you need!). The goal is to get a stiff dough, but you should be able to incorporate all the dry flour in. It'll be similar in texture to a grainy play dough.

Cover and let the mixture rest for 20-30 minutes.

Fresh-milled flour needs some time to absorb the water, so don't decide that your dough is too dry immediately after mixing.

Step 2: Add the active sourdough starter and salt.

Mix until everything is evenly incorporated (you'll most likely need your hands for this!). (Image 2)

The dough should be tacky and sticky, like play dough. Don't try to make einkorn dough feel like regular bread-flour sourdough. It won't become as elastic or strong!

Step 3: Cover and rest for 30 minutes.

Perform one and only set of "stretch and folds" (Image 3). Those won't be your typical stretch and folds you're used to with a regular sourdough dough, but it will be rather more like rearranging sticky dough a bit. Don't pull the dough aggressively, but since the dough will be stiff, you'll need to pull with some force.

Rest another 30 minutes.

TIP: More stretch and folds aren't necessarily better with einkorn. Einkorn has a much more fragile gluten structure than modern wheat, and excessive handling can actually weaken the dough.

Step 4: Cover the dough and leave it to bulk ferment at room temperature.

Instead of following the clock, watch the dough. You're looking for approximately 20% growth in volume, some visible bubbles (using a glass bowl really helps to see them!), and a dough that looks slightly aerated and feels lighter. For me, that usually means 2-4 hours, usually closer to 4. Keep in mind that the time for bulk fermentation starts when you add in your starter - so in this case, you're going to count stretch and folds in this time as well. 

Do not wait for the dough to double or anything like that! Einkorn can go from nicely fermented to overfermented much faster than a strong bread-flour dough. Once overfermented, it can become very difficult to shape into a boule. If you want to stay on the safe side, you can even underferment it a little and then leave it to ferment some extra time during the second rise. (Image 4)

Step 5: Heavily flour your work surface with the extra einkorn flour you milled at the beginning, and gently turn out the dough. Now we're going to shape this loaf, and for einkorn bread, I find that this is the time to handle it aggressively. (Image 5)

That means that you'll be using quite a bit of that extra flour you milled, you're going to be adding in until you'll be able to get a ball of dough that barely sticks to the counter. I like to help myself with a bench scraper here and spend about 5 minutes just shaping the dough from a sticky mess to an almost smooth ball.

Then I like to correct the shape a bit and create some surface tension by rotating the ball a bit and pulling it towards myself on the counter.

Step 6: Generously flour a banneton (I like using rice four for that), and I mean generously. Einkorn dough will be sticky and there's only a few things worse than the dough sticking to your banneton cover when you want to get it out.

Place the boule into the banneton seam-side up (Image 6), cover, and leave it to puff up some more for about 1-2 hours. Optionally, you can put it into the fridge to cold ferment for up to 12 hours (you can do more, but the dough will start losing structure with time).

NOTE: cold proof is going to degrade the structure a little bit and bake the sourdough flavor a bit stronger. Some people like that, some don't, there's only one option for you to find out what you like. Try both!

Step 7: When you're ready to bake the bread, preheat your Dutch oven and oven to 450°F (230°C) for at least 30-45 minutes.

Keep the dough refrigerated while the oven preheats.

Turn the cold dough onto a piece of parchment paper.

Score the top with a criss cross slash, but do not make it excessively deep (that could hurt the structure of the loaf). I like to do some shallow cuts too, to help control how the bread opens up in the oven.

Transfer it to the hot Dutch oven. (Image 7)

Bake for 40 minutes covered at 450°F (230°C). Remove the lid and bake for another 5-10 minutes (depending on how cruncy you want your crust to be).

Step 8: Transfer the loaf to a cooling rack and let it cool completely before slicing (this takes about 2 hours). (Image 8)

This is especially important with fresh milled einkorn. Cutting it while it's still hot can leave you with a gummy crumb even when the loaf is properly baked.