Spelt flour vs wheat flour
Spelt is a wheat. Its gluten is real but fragile, which means every instruction about developing a dough has to be read differently.
The short answer
Spelt is an older species of wheat and contains gluten — it is not suitable for anybody avoiding gluten, and this is the single most consequential thing to say about it. Its gluten is more extensible and less elastic than modern bread wheat’s, which means it develops quickly, tolerates less working, and slackens rather than tightening when it is pushed too far.
Where they differ
| Dimension | First | Second |
|---|---|---|
| Is it gluten-free | No. It is a wheat and it contains gluten. | No. |
| Gluten character | Extensible and fragile. It develops fast and breaks down fast. | Elastic and more robust. |
| Tolerance of kneading | Low. It is easy to take a spelt dough past its best. | High. |
| Tolerance of long fermentation | Low, for the same reason. | High. |
| Water absorption | Generally lower. | Higher. |
| Flavour | Nuttier and sweeter. | Milder. |
| Substitution | Works, with less working and a closer eye on the dough. | — |
What to change when swapping it in
Work it less, watch it more, and expect the dough to be ready sooner than the recipe says. A spelt dough given a wheat dough’s kneading time is frequently over-developed rather than under-developed, which shows as a slack dough that will not hold a shape and a loaf that spreads.
Hydration usually needs to come down slightly rather than up. That is the opposite of the wholemeal adjustment and catches people who have learned one and apply it to the other.
A part substitution — a quarter to a half of the flour — gives most of the flavour with far less of the handling difficulty, and is what BakeHQ would suggest to anybody meeting it for the first time.
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