White spelt | The Fresh Loaf

Hi. Has anyone found white spelt flour makes a very tacky dough? I've just made up a batch, replacing some of my usual wholemeal and organic white bread flour with spelt, so it represents about 30% of the total flour used. The dough is amazingly sticky and hard to knead - is this usual? I used the same amount of water as always and weighed it all out scrupulously.
Thanks,
Andrew

For the spelt addition you have to use less water. Spelt requires 25% less water than wheat so you have to play with it to get it to your liking.

of the two loaves. One was made with half whole meal and a mix of white flour and white spelt, the other was half white spelt and a mix of white bread flour and wholemeal! The oval one was proofed and baked in an oval tin. Both are sourdough, 1.5 kilos weight and baked from cold in an unheated oven. They look a bit odd - but taste good!
http://web.mac.com/andrew_l/iWeb/Site%202/Photos.html
click on the photos to get a bigger version..
Andrew

I swapped 25% of the total AP flour weight with spelt and then added 16% additional spelt to accommodate the spelt's ability to absorb water and it worked out well. That amounted to 450g of AP, 150g +additional 25g of spelt. The dough was not sticky using the original water component.

Eric