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Bake-Along
8 min read
The Sourdough Einkorn Loaf Bake-Along Where Water Temperature Finally Made Sense
A full sourdough einkorn loaf bake-along using the DoughRise Dough Temperature Calculator. Real numbers, real decisions, and why water temp changed everything.
Freshly baked artisan sourdough loaf on a rustic wooden board, perfect for bakery themes.There is something about mid-October that makes me want to bake with ancient grains. The light goes flat by half four, the heating clicks on, and suddenly a loaf with a bit of character feels exactly right. This past Saturday I pulled out some einkorn flour I had sourced from a small mill in Yorkshire a few weeks back, specifically because I wanted to try it in a sourdough tin loaf. Einkorn has this warm, nutty, almost honey-like flavour that suits autumn baking better than just about anything I can think of.
What I did not fully anticipate was how dramatically einkorn would expose my usual laziness around water temperature. I normally eyeball it. I run the tap, it feels about right, and I get on with my life. That approach works well enough with strong white bread flour because you have got a generous gluten network absorbing the chaos. With einkorn, where the gluten is structurally fragile and the dough moves fast, landing at the wrong dough temperature cost me dearly on my first attempt. So before I even touched the flour on my second go, I opened the Dough Temperature Calculator and actually ran the numbers. This is the post about what changed when I did.
Ingredients
- 360g einkorn flour (whole or light, from a good mill)
- 240g strong white bread flour
- 420g water (temperature calculated, see below)
- 120g active sourdough starter (100% hydration)
- 12g fine sea salt
You will also need a 900g tin loaf pan, lightly oiled. A probe thermometer is genuinely non-negotiable here, not just helpful.
Before You Start
- Einkorn absorbs water more slowly than modern wheat. Give the initial mix a five-minute rest before you decide anything feels wrong.
- Keep your hands cool and work quickly during shaping. Einkorn dough warms up from handling faster than you expect.
- This is a tin loaf specifically because einkorn needs the support. Trying to freeform it as a batard without a high proportion of strong white flour is asking for a flat disc.
- Get your starter readings, flour temperature, and kitchen temperature before you open the calculator. It takes ninety seconds and saves the whole bake.
Step One: Take Your Temperatures Before You Touch Anything
This is where most bakes go wrong before they even start. On my first attempt last weekend, I just mixed everything together at roughly room temperature, figured it would be fine, and ended up with a dough that hit 27°C almost immediately. With strong bread flour, 27°C is a bit warm but manageable. With einkorn at 60% of the mix, it meant the dough was overactive from the first fold, the structure degraded before I could build it properly, and the final loaf had a gummy, dense crumb. Not ideal.
On my second attempt I measured everything properly before starting. My kitchen was sitting at 19°C (mid-October in a London flat with the heating just ticking on). My flour had been stored in the cupboard and came in at 18°C. My starter was 22°C after its morning feed. I punched all of this into the Dough Temperature Calculator, set my desired dough temperature to 24°C, and let it work out the water temperature I needed.
The maths that mattered
Desired dough temperature: 24°C. Kitchen temp: 19°C. Flour temp: 18°C. Starter temp: 22°C. The calculator told me I needed my water at 31°C to bring the mixed dough in at the right target. That is noticeably warmer than room temperature water from my tap, which in October runs at about 14°C. Without running the numbers, I would have used water that was far too cold, pushed the dough temperature down to somewhere around 20 to 21°C, and slowed fermentation to a crawl. The einkorn component is already less enzymatically active than modern wheat. Give it cold water as well and you are waiting around all evening for something to happen. With 31°C water, the dough mixed beautifully at 24°C and stayed predictable for the entire process.
Step Two: Mix the Dough
Weigh your water at 31°C using a probe thermometer (do not just guess, this is literally the only number that matters right now). Combine it with the starter in a large bowl and mix briefly to disperse. Add both flours and mix until no dry flour remains. You are not developing anything yet, just combining.
Leave it to rest for 30 minutes. This is your autolyse period, and with einkorn it matters more than usual because the grain needs time to fully absorb the water before you start working the dough. If you skip this or rush it, the dough will feel wetter and stickier than it actually is, and you will be tempted to add more flour, which is the wrong call.
After 30 minutes, add the salt dissolved in a tablespoon of the already-weighed water (take it from the 420g before you start). Mix it in firmly with your hands or a dough scraper for two to three minutes until fully incorporated.
Step Three: Building Structure (Carefully)
Einkorn gluten is ancient and delicate. It does not respond well to aggressive handling. What you want is gentle, deliberate coil folds every 30 minutes for the first two hours of fermentation.
A coil fold is exactly what it sounds like: lift the dough from the centre, let the ends hang and fold underneath, rotate 90 degrees, repeat. Four of these per set. You are building tension gradually rather than forcing it. You should feel the dough getting noticeably firmer and more extensible with each set. By the end of the second hour it should be holding its shape reasonably well and showing some light bubbling on the surface and around the edges.
Keep an eye on your dough temperature with your probe thermometer throughout. If it creeps above 25°C, pop the bowl into the fridge for 15 minutes. My kitchen warmed up a bit as the afternoon went on, and I had to do this once around the two-hour mark. This is exactly why knowing your starting temperature matters so much: you are managing a moving target, not a fixed variable.
Top Tip
When you do your first coil fold, wet your hands with cool water rather than dusting with flour. Einkorn dough is naturally stickier than modern wheat dough at the same hydration, and flour at this stage will dry out the surface and create uneven tension. Cool water keeps your hands clean without altering the dough at all.
Step Four: Shaping Into the Tin
After roughly three to four hours of fermentation at 24°C (you are looking for 50 to 60% volume increase and a dough that feels airy but still cohesive when you tug gently at an edge), it is time to shape.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Flatten it gently into a rough rectangle, roughly the length of your tin. Fold the long edges into the centre, then roll it away from you into a log. The tension you build here is what holds the shape in the tin. Do not squeeze or compress it. Transfer it seam-side down into your oiled tin.
Cover with a damp cloth or shower cap (I use a shower cap, it works perfectly) and leave at room temperature for 45 minutes, then move to the fridge overnight. Because einkorn ferments faster than modern wheat, I lean on the cold overnight proof to give the flavour time to develop without the structure degrading. The next morning the dough should have risen to just below the rim of the tin, or sitting right at it.
From the fridge to the oven.
Step Five: Baking the Loaf
Heat your oven to 240°C fan, with a roasting tin on the bottom shelf. When you are ready to bake, score the loaf with one confident slash down the centre, about 1cm deep. Lower the oven to 220°C fan, slide the loaf in on the middle shelf, and pour a mug of boiling water into the roasting tin below. Close the door immediately.
Bake for 20 minutes with steam, then remove the roasting tin and bake for a further 25 to 30 minutes until the loaf is deeply golden and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Einkorn bakes to a darker colour than white flour loaves, so do not pull it too early because the crust looks brown. Go by sound and internal temperature: aim for 96°C at the centre.
Leave it to cool on a wire rack for at least one hour before slicing. Einkorn's crumb needs time to set. Cut it too early and it will be gummy regardless of how well the bake went.
What the Calculator Actually Changed
Two bakes, same formula, same starter, same oven. The difference between them was entirely water temperature. On bake one, I used cold tap water at around 14°C, the dough came in at roughly 21°C, fermentation was sluggish, I left it too long trying to compensate, and the structure collapsed. Flat, gummy, disappointing. On bake two, I used 31°C water as the calculator specified, hit 24°C on the nose, and the whole process unfolded exactly as planned. The loaf came out of the oven with a proper ear, an open golden crust, and a crumb that was actually worth cutting into.
It is one of those things that sounds almost too simple to be the answer. Water temperature. That is it. But with a flour as expressive and as sensitive as einkorn, there is nowhere to hide. You either give it the conditions it needs at the start, or you spend the rest of the bake trying to recover from a bad opening move.
If you are running multiple batches or scaling this up for a small operation, the DoughRise Bakery plan handles commercial batch scaling and includes bakery cost reporting, which becomes genuinely useful when you are buying einkorn from a small mill at a premium and need to know exactly what each loaf is costing you.
Work out your own numbers with the free Dough Temperature Calculator, no login needed.
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