Step 1: Prepare the Dough

1. In a large bowl mix together water, sourdough starter, Himalayan salt and preferred syrup or honey.
2. Now, pour the flour into the large bowl. Using a spatula start incorporating flour with the wet mixture until you have homogeneous batter. The batter is supposed to be quite soft and wet.
3. Next, cover the bowl with a tea towel or stick it into a plastic bag and let it rest for an hour.

Step 2: Stretch and Folds

1. When the hour is up, flour the dough and your hands with fine spelt flour and do the first stretch and fold. But first, using silicone spatula separate the dough from the edges of the bowl. Go and watch the video to see how exactly the stretch and folds look like.
2. Then, cover the bowl again and let the dough rest for 15 minutes after which do the second stretch and fold.
3. Cover the bowl once again and let it rest for another 15 minutes before you do the third and final stretch and fold.

Step 3: Fermentation

1. After the final stretch and fold, cover the bowl and place it into warm (35°C, 95°F) oven for fermentation. It will have doubled in size in 4-5 hours. Now, you can also leave it for longer if you want your bread to taste tangier. I find that 4-5 hours is just perfect. 
2. In case your oven doesn’t allow such low temperatures and you leave the dough at room temperature it’ll take up to 12 hours for the dough to double in size.

Step 4: Final Proofing

1. When the dough is done fermenting, line your bread pan with parchment paper.
2. Then, remove the cover from dough bowl and dust the dough with fine spelt flour. Use spatula to separate the dough from the edges of the bowl and flour your hands.
3. Now, flip the dough over, so that the floured surface faces down and lightly dust the other side as well.
4. Next, fold the sides of the dough up and pinch together the top by kind of drawing it up (check the video for more details). You can do this in the bowl or alternatively, transfer the dough onto a floured wooden chopping board and do the folding and pinching there.
5. Then, gently transfer the dough into bread pan, cover and put back into warm oven for final 1-hour proofing.

Step 5: Baking and Cooling

1. To bake the sourdough spelt bread first remove the plastic or tea towel, then close oven door and heat the oven up to 190°C (375°F). Make sure you DON’T turn on the fast heat function! At the same time, set the timer to 1 hour and 10 minutes and let the bread bake.
2. When there are 5 minutes left, open the oven door and knock on the crust. The bread is done, if it sounds hallow. If not, bake for another 5-10 minutes.
3. Remove the bread from oven and place it onto any heat-resistant surface or placemat.
4. Next, take 2 sheets of kitchen paper and fold them once (so that you have 4 layers of paper) and place it onto a wooden board.
5. Lift the bread out of the pan by grabbing the edges of parchment paper and place it onto folded kitchen paper. Let cool for at least an hour before cutting.