Emmer and Rye Artisan Bread

This dough had a 6.5-hour first rise (calculated from the initial mixing) at 76°F and a 1-hour final proof. With different temperatures and more or less instant yeast, you can modify this timing.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the flours, salt, and instant yeast.

Add the water and mix on low speed with the dough hook attachment for 1-2 minutes. The dough will be somewhat shaggy and sticky. The dough mixing and re-mixing below can be done by hand if you don't have a stand mixer, or you can mix briefly and do several rounds of stretching and folding with rests in between over the course of a couple of hours.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for one hour.

Mix again, now on med-high speed, for 12 minutes. The dough will wrap around the hook and look silky by the end of the mixing.

Transfer the dough to a straight-walled container if you have one. Cover and let it rise until it is between 1.5x and 2x the original size, an expansion of 50-100%.

Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and shape it to your preference (boule, batard, oblong loaf). Make sure you build tension on the surface of the dough and dust it with flour before placing it seam-side up in your proofing basket.

Cover the basket and let it rise again for about 1 hour. I don't recommend refrigerating this dough overnight because the fermentation is very active and it is likely to overproof.

Preheat your oven and baking vessel to 500°F for 30 minutes.

Flip the dough out of the proofing basket and onto a sheet of parchment paper or a silicone bread sling. Score and load into your baking vessel and oven.

Bake for 20 minutes at 500°F, lid on, with the option to uncover and re-score the dough at the 7-minute mark and the lid back on afterward.

After the 20 minutes of baking, drop the temperature to 450°F, remove the lid, bake another 15 minutes or until the internal temperature is over 205°F.

Let the bread cool for several hours before you slice it.