I am back at it after a long break. I attempted a new recipe using majority Khorasan/Kamut flour. Results can be summed up in 1 word. FLAT!

Recipe

This recipe is from Tartine Book No. 3.

Ingredients Grams
Whole-grain Khorasan flour (Central Milling) 600
Medium-strong wheat flour, sifted (King Arthur All-Purpose) 200
High-extraction wheat flour (50/50 Whole Wheat/All-Purpose) 200
Wheat germ 70
Water 850
Leaven 150
Fine sea salt 25

Number of Loaves: 2
Hydration Percentage: 85%
Slap and Fold (Yes/No): No
Autolyse (Time/No): 2 hours

Hot Takes + Notes

I was very excited to try this new ancient grain flour type for a sourdough loaf. I ordered it special from Central Milling since I couldn’t find it locally.

Chad Robertson, the author of Tartine Book No. 3 did speak about how these ancient grains have less gluten than contemporary wheat varieties so building strength in the dough is more of a challenge.

What went wrong:

In the end I was not successful at building dough strength and that resulted in exceedingly flat loaves!

Things to fix for next time:

  1. Make sure starter is truly ready to rumble. Billy the Sourdough Starter has been in maintenance mode for some time now coming out of the fridge sporadically. He needs some more love before attempting this loaf again. My leaven did not pass the float test but I ran out of time.
  2. Potentially use less water, maybe attempting the full prescribed water amount was ambitious as my dough was super slack.
  3. Preshape twice to give dough more structure.
  4. Maybe shorter Autolyse? I understand too long of an Autolyse can tire out a dough.

Pictures

Preshaping
Preshaping - cow pies
Final Loaves
Final Loaves - flat earthers