Baking with Ancient Grains - Guide
This page is a guide to help bakers bake quality bread with ancient grains.
A series of videos are currently being produced which will further guide bakers.
If you are activating a dried starter - see our first video here
Ancient grains include spelt, khorasan, emmer, purple wheat, and several more (including rye).
Ancient grains have not specifically been bred for the benefit of industrial farmers, bakers and consumers seeking industrial convenience or mass appeal.
Strong, glutinous dough and high volume bread are not the aim of ancient grains.
Mouthfeel
Modern consumers have been trained to associate baked aerated starches as a sign of digestibility.
Ancient grains are digestible and healthy precisely because they lack the glutinous and other industrial conveniences of modern grains.
Creating an aerated dough can improve mouthfeel and digestibility but is not essential.
Aerated crumb feels good on the tongue and a degree of aeration can also be achieved with ancient grains.
Good mouthfeel for ancient grain bread is achieved largely through good process and high quality ingredients, particularly oily seeds.
The perfect mouthfeel for an ancient grain bread is one that virtually dissolves on your tongue as you move it around your mouth.
Ingredients
- Wholegrain ancient grain flour (or grain if you mill your own)
- Sea Salt - quality salt with no additives
- Water - fresh or with additives filtered
- Sourdough - most starters will do the job
- Seeds - linseeds, sunflower, sesame, pumpkin, chia, hemp, poppy, carraway
Note:
- we recommend Organic ingredients wherever possible
- sifted stoneground wholegrain ancient grain flour can add quality to some bread types
- trying to boost rise via addition of roller-milled white flour (ancient or modern) can produce disappointing results such as: gummy crumb, inelastic crumb, poor water migration, confused mouthfeel
Process
Start with the assumption that your ancient grain flour needs to be handled gently to produce the best results.
Use subsequent bakes as experimentation to discover how extra development may improve characteristics such as:
More or less..
- crumb uniformity
- aeration
- acidity
- seed load
- fermentation around lifestyle (sleep is important)
Recipes
Starter
Learn how to activate your dried starter here.
The same starter method will work without a dried starter but take two to three times longer and may require a little bit more work to develop suitable bacteria and wild yeast. But it's not that difficult and a fun thing to do!