After months of testing in different ovens in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, with different flour types, I’m finally sharing this foolproof fully spelt sourdough bread recipe. This is my go-to bread and I make it a couple times a week.
It’s a lower hydration dough, meaning a high ratio of flour to water. Most sourdough recipes made with bread flour seek to use the highest hydration possible for the most open crumb and greatest oven spring. Here, we have a slightly tighter crumb and less extensive oven spring, but an excellent and flavourful loaf.
This is a good daily bread that can hold up to any number of toppings. If you want a more complex, sour flavour, try this sourdough dark rye bread. For something more toothsome, try my honey oat sourdough.
There is a spelt sourdough in my book, but I hope this recipe can provide a straightforward guide for anyone looking to bake more with spelt flour.
Why You Should Try This Recipe
A full spelt sourdough can be a bit tricky to find, and that’s because people expect that pillowy open crumb from sourdough loaves. There’s so much to be said for ancient grains in this oldest form of leavened bread, though, and I hope you can embrace the stronger flavours alternative flours will bring to the table. Not only that, this loaf is also:
- Shockingly easy: even for beginners, this is a truly easy sourdough to make. It’s low hydration, so much less sticky, and easy to shape as a result.
- Sourdough lasts longer: this loaf still tastes great after a week and doesn’t dry out as quickly as yeasted bread does. The crust might get a bit harder but that’s it.
- It’s a good basic bread: this is my go-to for anything from sandwiches to french toast, as it is so easy to make and use.
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Spelt Flour: light or sifted the first time, and then experiment with adding whole grain. See more on this below.
- Sourdough Starter: any kind of starter can be used for this recipe, as long as it’s 100% hydration (using equal parts flour and water). Levain can also be used.
- Salt: fine grain sea salt. Don’t change the salt amount used, it’s necessary for proper gluten development.
Step by Step
1. Mix the starter: add the active starter to water in a large mixing bowl. The starter should float.
2. Add the flour: mix in the flour(s) and salt to form a shaggy dough.
3. Stretch and fold: do three rounds of stretches and folds.
4. Shape: after folding, the dough should be smooth and rounded.
5. Form a boule: use your hands to rotate the dough into a boule or ball with surface tension.
6. Place in the basket: seam side up into a lined and floured banneton.
7. Rise: set aside to rise, covered, for a couple hours at room temperature.
8. Ferment: chill overnight to allow the bread to finish rising and ferment longer.
9. Score: turn the dough out onto parchment and score it. Place into the preheated pot.
10. Bake: for about 40 minutes. Cool fully before slicing.
If you can’t see the recipe video in this post, please watch it here.
Recipe Notes
If you’re unfamiliar with the terms used, please see our post on how to stretch and fold sourdough bread over at the Baked Collective.
You can use a round proving basket if preferred. I like the batard shape more for this loaf as it is fairly small and the oven spring is better in the batard form.
If your oven can’t reach the temperature required for this recipe, or you don’t have a dutch oven, you can bake the bread as a sandwich loaf. Simply shape into a log, prove in a standard loaf tin, and bake at 200°C (400°F) for 40 minutes once the refrigeration time is finished. See this honey and oat bread for a visual representation.
I did experiment with baking this from cold (not pre-heating the pot). It’s possible if you are concerned about handling the very hot dutch oven, but the end result isn’t as good.
Because this is a low hydration dough, there’s no point in shaping by rolling/pressing the dough before forming the boule. Simply turn until surface tension forms, but be careful not to break the tension.
There are no substitutions for this recipe.
Expert Tips
- Line the banneton: spelt has a tendency to stick to even the most seasoned basket. Line with a linen towel and sprinkle with flour to ensure a good release.
- Don’t over shape: this is a lower gluten bread and will tear more easily during shaping. A quick shape to make it round is enough, don’t rotate it too much.
- Room temperature first: I know it seems a bit finicky, but the short rise at room temperature is necessary for the proving to be successful. If you refrigerate immediately, the dough will be under proved. This has been extensively tested.
- Think about flour: I have only had good success for this particular bread when using a maximum of 50% whole grain flour. This can be spelt or another whole flour – in the video, I used part Graham flour (coarsely milled wheat). The first time you make this recipe, I highly recommend using all light spelt flour as it’s much easier to work with and will produce a consistently good loaf.
- Cool fully: all sourdough loaves should be fully cool before slicing to avoid gummy bread. This is especially true for those made with lower gluten flours like spelt.
More Spelt Flour Recipes
Spelt Pretzels
Spelt Sourdough Pizza Dough
Sourdough Rye and Spelt Crackers
Spelt Banana Bread
Most of the baking recipes (unless gluten-free) on OE are made with spelt flour – see a comprehensive collection here.
If you make this Sourdough Spelt Bread or any other bread recipes on Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email.
Spelt Sourdough Bread
Description
Ingredients
- 300 grams (10.6 oz) water room temperature
- 100 grams (3.5 oz) active sourdough starter
- 550 grams (19.4 oz) spelt flour
- 10 grams (0.35 oz) fine sea salt
Instructions
- Add the water and starter to a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.300 grams (10.6 oz) water, 100 grams (3.5 oz) active sourdough starter
- Add the flour and salt to the bowl, and use a wooden spoon or spatula to mix until a shaggy dough forms. Finish mixing with your hands to fully incorporate the flour.550 grams (19.4 oz) spelt flour, 10 grams (0.35 oz) fine sea salt
- Cover the bowl and set aside to rest for 30 minutes.
- Once the dough has rested, begin your stretches and folds. Do three rounds of stretches and folds over the course of an hour, once every 20 minutes.
- Form the dough into a ball or boule by placing it onto a clean surface and using your hands to rotate until surface tension forms.
- Line a proving basket with a tea towel and sprinkle with flour. Place the dough upside-down into the prepared basket.
- Cover and set aside to rise at room temperature for three hours. The dough should visibly rise during this time. If it hasn't, let it rise for longer at room temperature (see pictures 6 and 7 in the step-by-step section above).
- Place the dough into the refrigerator overnight, or for at least eight hours and up to 24 hours.
- Place a heat-safe dutch oven into the centre rack of your oven and preheat the oven to 240°C (465°F). The oven must be this hot and the dutch oven preheated for the bread to turn out properly.
- Turn the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper and score with a sharp knife.
- Carefully remove the dutch oven and place your loaf into it, using the parchment paper as handles to lift the bread.
- Bake for 20 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid and reduce the temperature to 220°C (425°F) and bake for another 15-20 minutes, or until browned to your desired degree.
- Remove from the oven and cool in the pot for ten minutes before carefully removing the bread and cooling fully on a wire rack. It must be completely cool before slicing.
- I recommend storing it in the pot you've baked it in, or freezing individual slices and toasting to thaw.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.
Love this recipe, works every time. I use 100g wholemeal spelt flour and 450g white spelt. I’m wheat intolerant with IBS and I can eat this bread with no reaction.
Thank you ❤️
I have tried this once and it turned out the best loaf I have made so far (only made 3 before with wheat flour) but it didn’t expand amazingly well… it’s a very small loaf! Any ideas how to improve this please? Followed pretty much to the letter except it had 30 mins less warm proving time as I had to go to bed! Thanks
Hi Jo, sounds like it just needed a bit more time! That 30 minutes probably would have made a difference, and you might need even more time at room temperature if your home is on the colder side or the starter is a bit sluggish (if it’s rather new). I would recommend leaving it to rise a bit longer before baking but play around with the timing a bit as a lot of factors will come into it. You might find this article helpful.
What is light spelt flour? I’m in Australia and we only seem to have “spelt flour white” (described as 100% stoneground unbleached white spelt flour; or organic milled spelt grain 100%) and it’s expensive. I’m a little confused as your ingredient list did not specify the different flour you mentioned in the notes, so my loaf is extremely dry and dense, and it was nearly impossible to stretch and fold.
Hi Marjan, light or sifted spelt flour is the same as white spelt flour.
this is amazing – I finally found a recipe with spelt that worked for me, looks great and tastes good
thank you
I’m so glad you liked it, thanks Raquel! Thanks for the note about the typo, too.
Brilliant recipe! I’d been struggling to create tension and a slight tweak to lower hydration – this is roughly 55% – has made all the difference.
I have a lovely rise and a loaf that didn’t spread! I baked directly on taking tray, no cover, at 240c for 15 mins then dropped to 200c for 20 mins.
Perfect recipe, thank you! I’ve been trying to get a perfect spelt loaf and this recipe worked from the first try! The only change I made was bake covered at 270 for 20 min then 220 uncovered for 20 min.
I added 400 gr.. of water to the starter before Adding the flour and salt. Then because my starter had fallen an hour before i used it, I added an extra 150 gr of starter (total 250). This was my compensation for the slower yeast action. I used a light organic Spelt flour.
My bread rose nicely to double within 6 hours of mixing the dough (including folds). It turned out fabulous. Almost as nice as yours ;). Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Alexandra,
I tried your Spelt Sourdough Bread recipe with spelt flour that I ground from spelt berries. The starter was very bubbly and I followed your quantities exactly. The dough was so dry that I needed to add water just to get it to stick together. After letting it sit for a while I needed to add more water in order to stretch it. After the rising period it seemed to have barely risen (maybe 10%). In the morning it again seemed to have barely risen. It didn’t rise at all during baking. The end product is very dense.
Any ideas what I’m doing wrong? Maybe just more water?
Other notes:
My kitchen is a bit on the cold side.
I sifted the flour.
I was previously using another higher hydration recipe, which worked well for a while but then started not rising. I thought maybe it was related to the home ground flour, but I bought some commercial flour and it still didn’t work well.
Might different sources of spelt have more or less gluten, perhaps depending on the time of the year?
Hi Larry, sounds like there may have been a lot of germ in the flour despite sifting, which would in turn absorb a lot more of the water. I have made this loaf following these measurements with freshly ground spelt from my own mill – without sifting – and it works well, just slightly denser than with light spelt. I’m also currently making it every 3-4 days with French 110 type flour, a mostly whole-grain flour, and it’s going well with that too. If you’re having another higher hydration recipe that also isn’t working, it could be due to something like the tools you’re using interacting with the dough (are you using a metal bowl? Some can interfere with the yeasts). Certainly different sources of spelt will have different results, and it will depend on such a huge variety of things – dry or wet field, age of the grain, organic or not, and so on. While it does sound like you might need a little more water to account for the whole grains present from grinding your own flour, it also sounds like there are some other problems at play so I would recommend changing up your tools first and seeing if that helps. If your kitchen is cold you’ll also need to give it quite a bit more time to rise. I hope this helps.
Hi Alexandra,
I just tried your Spelt Sourdough Bread recipe for a second time with much better results. Still working with a 100% sprouted whole spelt flour for starter and loaf so reduced the amount by flour by 100g and proved for 6 hours. It ended up overnight in fridge for about 16 hours because, life. This morning I baked a really beautiful loaf!
But most importantly, while waiting between stretch and fold, I read your info more thoroughly and will buy some white spelt flour for my next adventure!
Thanks!
SO
This recipe was surprisingly delicious. Based on some reviews I was skeptical but I made it anyway because there’s very few 100% spelt real sourdough recipes online, I tried it, it’s amazing. Yes, it’s less hydrated dough than I am used to with white sourdough but that doesn’t mean the dough isn’t fluffy and moist and just the right density for sourdough. I ate it with cream cheese for breakfast and it was marvelous, I was satisfied with one thick slice when usually I’m not, I attribute that to the spelt and the bread texture, it felt like a meal.
Are the ingredients by weight? Or measuring cups. Thanks!
Hi Heidi, the ingredients are in weights.
Hi I don’t have a Dutch oven is there a other option? Many thanks
Hi Anna, you can bake it in a regular loaf tin – see this honey oat sourdough for how that can work.
Hello, Yours is the fourth 100% spelt sourdough bread recipe I’ve tried and I’m thrilled to finally have a loaf I can enjoy. So… thank you.
Question: The bottom is very hard and difficult to cut through. I followed your recipe to the letter and am using my middle oven rack with an enameled cast iron oval dutch oven (can’t go any higher with rack due to lid).
Any suggestions?
Hi Rae-Anne, I’m so happy to hear the recipe worked well for you. I’d recommend placing a baking sheet or pizza stone under the dutch oven to add an extra layer of insulation, that can help to reduce over-browning the base of the bread.
Thanks for the quick reply, Alexandra, but I already do that. Sorry… should have mentioned that the first time. I’ve been making a multigrain seeded sourdough bread using traditional whole wheat flour for my husband for 6 months and don’t have this bottom crust issue with his, so I feel like it’s something unique with spelt flour perhaps. Any other ideas?
There are a couple more things that you can try, but I’ve never had this happen with this particular loaf – try brushing off any excess flour from the outside of the loaf before baking (this is a big one) and try baking it at a lower temperature and removing the lid sooner. As it’s a lower hydration loaf, the crust will be a bit thicker in any case than a standard white sourdough.
Thank you very much, Alexandra. I’ll give your suggestions a try!
The recipe worked perfectly, thank you.
I’ve bought some wholemeal Spelt flour and I’m going to try a mix of wholemeal and white to see what results I get – probably start with an 80% white to 20% wholemeal mix.
That should make a very nice loaf, happy to hear the recipe is working well for you.
How do I make my own starter for spelt sourdough? Does it have to be white spelt flour? Can I not use whole meal flour?
There are instructions in my book for how to make your own starter. As it says in the post, light spelt is easiest the first time you make it, and then you can add a bit of whole-grain as you get more used to making this type of bread. I usually do 50/50 but I make this loaf every few days.
Hey I’m so excited to finally come across a full spelt sourdough recipe! Been playing around myself but still not perfect will try this.Can you let me know what ratio you are feeding the starter I found my starter to be more runny with the spelt flour so it’s not growing as much
Hi Sara, I hope you like the loaf! So I always use whole grain flour for my starter which helps a lot, and it keeps the starter a little more stable and will keep it at a good peak before use for longer. I usually do a rye starter but also find that white/light spelt makes for a slightly less effective starter – you might want to try it with a wholemeal flour instead. You can also adjust your starter percentages a bit to suit the type of flour you have and play around with it a bit! Sourdough is very much an individual process and it’s good to test what works best for you with your flour, water, and so on.
I would like to try making a smaller loaf. If I cut all ingredients in half, would that work?
Hi Deborah, that should be fine. The baking time would also be less, so I’d check it at about 15 minutes and then see if you want to take the lid off already at that point.
The dough seemed too dry compared to other sourdough bread I’ve made, but I watched through the video again and it looked exactly the same as in the video. After the first couple stretches and folds it softened up and was easier to do. The first one was a bit tough but the bread worked out really well in the end! Thank you!
Hi there! I made this loaf for the first time and it turned out pretty good! It’s pretty dense and the crumb isn’t very open. Does that mean I should increase the hydration a little bit? Or maybe do another stretch and fold? I’m still new at this and I’ve never done anything with spelt before but I’m excited to learn!
Hi Hilary, sounds like it was underproved. I would leave it at room temp for an extra hour or two before refrigerating to get a better open crumb. This is something you might have to experiment a bit with, especially if you’re more of a beginner, as proving time will vary slightly based on original water temperature as well as ambient temp. I did have my mom test this a couple weeks ago with Canadian flour just to make sure everything was in order and it worked perfectly for her, but she did give it an extra two hours before refrigerating to make up for the cold house temp. Hope this helps!
I made this exactly to the recipe and my dough was wayyyyyy too dry. Like it wouldn’t stretch at all it was so dry. I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I measured with a scale, and I tried twice.
Hi Mel, I’m not sure why it would be so dry. Did you also weigh the water? I make this bread every week and while it is a lower hydration, you can see that it is stretched for that step. Did you use light or whole grain spelt flour, and what variety?
Hi there.
Questions:
1. Is there any difference by adding the starter/salt before and after your autolyse?
2. Most recipes call for at least 75% water but you only using 54%. Will that be a little too dry in mixing your flour and water at step 1?
3. I use to bake my sourdough the next day after proofing my dough in the fridge overnight but I have also tried baking it successfully after 8 hours of proofing at room temperature. Could it be I’m living in Singapore and the temperature is warm enough?
Hi Xav,
1. There is no noticeable difference for this recipe, you can do it either way.
2. Yes, this is a specifically low hydration sourdough specifically developed with spelt flour. It’s not too dry – you can see in the pictures and video what the dough looks like when first mixing. I usually mix with my hands but it’s not necessary.
3. You can prove only at room temperature and then bake immediately, and you probably won’t need a full eight hours if your home is quite warm. The refrigeration period is to improve flavour and ensure that the dough is fully proved, but you can use a different method – just keep an eye on the dough to make sure it doesn’t overprove.
Hope this helps! I currently have a loaf in the oven.
I love this site, and am working on incorporating more spelt into my baking. I have been anxious to try a sourdough, but my obstacle is getting the actual starter. Is the starter used here spelt-based? Are there instructions elsewhere on the site for generating a starter, or do you use some commercial starter? I might have missed finding the instructions for starter elsewhere. Wonderful site!
Hi Miranda, this starter is made with spelt, but I have a recipe in my book for rye starter that works just as well. We also have a tutorial on making starter over at Baked that might help!
Im planning on giving this recipe a try and Ive never made sourdough bread before neither. I was wondering if you meant that its best to use only 100% Light spelt flour or did you mean just 100% spelt flour? Is there a difference ?
Hi there, I recommend reading through the whole post and watching the video before making the loaf, especially if it’s your first time with sourdough. Use all light spelt flour the first time. The difference is pretty much the same as with white and whole wheat flour, so light spelt is easier to work with and will make for a fluffier bread that’s easier to shape.