The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.
Isand66's picture
Isand66

This recipe is an adaptation from Veronika at http://eattheroses.wordpress.com.  It uses the no-knead method and allows the gluten which is very weak in rye breads to develop slowly.  I decided to add some dark beer to give it an extra kick and also used First Clear flour instead of Bread or AP flour.  I ended up keeping the dough in the refrigerator for an extended period since I ran out of time to let it rise completely at room temperature.  I think this ended up creating an extremely sour sourdough rye which is not for the faint of heart.  If you want a more mellow tasting bread, I suggest you follow the directions below.

All in all, the bread turned out fairly well with a nice crispy crust and chewy, moist crumb.  The beer definitely added another flavor profile which makes this bread ideal for a nice sharp cheese and beer.

Ingredients

Starter

5 oz. water (90 degrees F.)

3 oz. Rye Flour (I used medium grade from KAF)

2 oz. First Clear Flour (you can substitute Bread flour or High Gluten flour)

2 oz. Refreshed Starter (100 % Hydration White Starter or Rye or Whole Wheat)

Final Dough

7 oz. Dark Rye Flour

10.5 oz. First Clear Flour (or Bread flour or High Gluten)

2 Tsp. Salt

1 - 2 TBS Caraway Seeds (more or less depending on your preference.  I used 1.5 TBS)

12 oz. Dark Beer

Directions

Prepare the starter and let it sit out at room temperature for 5-8 hours until it is nice and bubbly and ripe.  You can use it immediately or put it in the refrigerator overnight until ready to use.

Mix the starter with the room temperature beer and break it up.  Next mix in the flours and salt until the dough comes together and is still sticky. You don't need to over-mix the dough as it will now sit covered with some plastic wrap for 18-20 hours at room temperature.  (This is the point where after around 8 hours I put it in my refrigerator).  After 18-20 hours the dough should be nice and puffy and ready to turn out on an either a lightly floured work surface or lightly oiled one.  Do several stretch and folds and then put the dough in your floured banneton or bakers couche for its final journey which should take around 1.5 - 3 hours.

When the final dough is nice and puffy and passes the finger poke test, prepare your oven for hearth baking.

Pre-heat oven with baking stone (I use one on bottom and one on top shelf of my oven), to 500 degrees F.

Slash loaves as desired and place empty pan in bottom shelf of oven.

Pour 1 cup of very hot water into pan and place loaves into oven.

Lower oven to 450 Degrees and bake for 25 - 35 minutes until bread is golden brown and internal temperature reaches 200 degrees.

Shut the oven off and leave the bread inside with the door slightly open for 10 minutes.  This will help dry the loaves out and keep the crust crunchy.

Let cool on cooling rack and enjoy!

This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting

noel's picture

Oil sprayers.

February 29, 2012 - 3:27pm -- noel

I am wondering if anyone here has had expierience with the refilable oil sprayers that work by being preasurized by hand pumping. I had one several years ago and it clogged up and stopped working after a year or so. I am thinking of getting another one because I hate the idea of buying disposable areosal cooking sprays.

ramat123's picture

A question about stamping (if you call it that way)

February 29, 2012 - 2:29pm -- ramat123

Hi,

My brother in law bought me a great present.

It is a stamping piece of iron with my name on it to put a sign on my loaves.

The problem is that I have a good guess of how to do it but want you advise.

Do you have an experience with that?

Thanks a lot bakers,

David Zonsheine

raqk8's picture
raqk8

I get the feeling that dinner rolls are one of those things that don't come out of the oven very often. We all love them. There's something about the soft melt-in-your-mouth inside, the buttery outside... it's nearly impossible to resist a freshly made dinner roll.

That's just the problem though. That whole freshly made thing is hard to do. I don't know about you, but it is rare I have the time to be home early in the afternoon to throw a batch of dough together to be ready for dinner. I would absolutely love to (and so would AJ... he managed to finish all but one of the rolls I made), but it's just not that feasible very often....

Please visit my blog over at Ovenmittsblog.com to see the full post and recipe!

varda's picture
varda

I have been making the same loaf of bread since Sunday and it's not even sourdough.   It is my first Pain de Mie, using the formula that Syd posted here.    Usually when people tell me what a lot of work it must be to make bread, I say it doesn't take much time or effort - mostly you let the dough do the work.   That does not hold for this bread.   Syd's instructions say to work this dough until it either has a gossamer windowpane, or your arms cramp up.   Since my arms never cramped up even though they were (and still are) extremely tired, I worked the dough with a few short breaks for an hour and 10 minutes.   No gym today.   In theory I could have used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.   In practice it would probably have been the last time I used it.   

Since I have never made/bought/eaten this type of bread before I have no idea if it came out the way it should.  

I will say it's the most flavorful white bread I've ever tasted.  

A few baking notes:

The third day of the formula, or baking day, calls for "whole egg 140g."   I thought maybe ostrich egg?    I clicked through to the site that Syd referenced hoping for some clarification.  Unfortunately I can't read Chinese characters so no help there.   I ended up putting in 3 medium eggs which came to 156g.   Comparing my crumb to Syd's his seems to be a lot whiter, so that may have been incorrect.  

Update:   Syd's instructions call for heating the milk for the first mix (the water roux) but not for the next two.   I scalded for each of these because that's just what I do, but didn't know if it was necessary or not.  

During mixing, the dough stayed fragile until around 40 minutes.    At around 50 minutes it seemed to be getting stronger and silkier.   I went back to the Chinese site to see if they had any pictures of what it should look like.   They did.   I wasn't there yet so I kept going until an hour and ten minutes, at which point it was strong enough to twirl around like a pizza.   

Syd didn't mention steam, and I wasn't sure if that is called for in this type of bread.   Google translate was no help.   I finally decided to do steam for the first 15 minutes.   I baked one slightly smaller loaf in a pyrex bread pan (5 x 9 x 2.5 inches) and the second in my short Pullman (4 x 9 x 4).   Since I was reasonably sure that I wouldn't repeat the disaster of a few days ago where my attempt at a second Borodinsky went very wrong, I decided to cover the Pullman.   It didn't overflow.   It did reach the top.   My first success in covered Pullman baking.   I baked the Pyrex loaf at 356F (180C) for 35 minutes and the Pullman loaf for 40.   Could probably have baked each longer, but I didn't want to push it.   These aren't supposed to be crusty loaves after all, given that Pain de Mie seems to mean Crumb Bread.   (Sounds better in French.)  

Update:  I divided dough as 956g of dough into the Pullman and 820g into the Pyrex. 

So I have now baked an Asian Pain de Mie or a facsimile thereof.   Wonder how a French Pain de Mie would differ.   Just about everything I'm doing here is new to me.  I have certainly never hand-worked dough for over an hour before - maximum maybe 25 minutes.   Any suggestions for improvements are decidedly welcome.  

Oh, and incidentally this is either the 4th or 5th of Syd's formulas that I have tried, or around half of the number posted.   More please!  They are most interesting and excellent.

Bonus Rye Malt

In my efforts to make a second Borodinsky more authentic than the first, I took Janet's suggestion to make Rye Malt.  While I did find a few detailed suggestions on the web for how to do this, I still found it confusing, so I hope these documented steps will be helpful.

Step 1:   Find rye berries.   --- I found them at a food co-op in Cambridge MA which seemed to have bulk berries of many different varieties.  

Step 2:   Soak for 5 hours  --- I only soaked 60g worth because I didn't know what I was doing

Step 3:  Drain, rinse, and then keep moist while the berries sprout.   In the picture below they are just starting to sprout around 16 hours after soaking is complete.   I placed a wet paper towel on top of the berries, and had to remoisten it a few times.  

Step 4:  Put on a baking tray to dry out in the oven.    The picture at the top of the post where the berries are fully sprouted was taken 23 hours after the one above.

Step 5:   Dry out at very low heat for around 2 hours.   I kept the oven between 100F and 200F by acting as the oven thermostat. 

Step 6:   Grind them up.  I used a coffee grinder.

It's certainly not red.   I have no idea if it's Borodinsky appropriate.   But I will say that my Borodinsky didn't fail because of the malt.  

subfuscpersona's picture

need your opinion on the kitchenaid professional 5 plus mixer

February 29, 2012 - 11:51am -- subfuscpersona

I have an opportunity to acquire a used Kitchenaid professional 5 plus mixer. The mixer is in excellent condition.

The mixer comes with bowl, paddle, spiral dough hook and whip beater. Bowl capacity is slightly over 5 quarts (measured by pouring in water). The mixer moter is 450 watts (though I recognize that wattage alone is not the best criterion for evaluating the ability of a mixer to knead dough).

NetherReine's picture

Surprise Sourdough with Chia Seeds

February 29, 2012 - 11:41am -- NetherReine

SURPRISE SOURDOUGH WITH CHIA SEEDS Camille Brazell

An adaptation of Norwich Sourdough by Susan @ Wild Yeast

 Ingredients:

360 g ripe 100% hydration sourdough starter (I use wholewheat starter)

100 g chia seeds

510 g bread flour (I use King Arthur)

510 g white wholewheat (I use Wheat Montana Prairie Gold)

710 g water at 75 degrees Fahrenheit

25 g salt

Process:

Mix the flour, water, chia seeds and starter on low speed until combined. (About a minute in my KA mixer).

Our Crumb's picture

Poll: Source of Variation Among Starters

February 29, 2012 - 9:36am -- Our Crumb

Oh I'm sure this has been asked, answered and debated here endlessly.  But having tired quickly of sorting through >100 screens of Sourdough & Starters forum posts and replies, I decided life is too short and I'll ask again:

How would you good people rank the relative strength of contribution to the final character (that is, the exact population of yeast and bacteria) in an established starter, from:

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