dark rye

   Every once in a while I feel the need to make a more simple bread; one that will make a great sandwich.  With that in mind I decided to make a version of a Pain Au Levain using some French style flour from KAF, whole wheat and some dark rye flour and toasted wheat germ in the final dough.

I used my normal over-night retardation procedure for the bulk rise and decided to use one of my new baskets I purchased at Good Will over the summer.  Unfortunately I added so much rice flour to the basket to prevent the dough from sticking that some of it got onto the bread itself and when I went to shape it I de-gassed the dough too much.  I was trying to get a nice tight skin on the dough and the rice flour was preventing this.  Lesson learned, but in the end while the crumb ended up a little tighter than it should have been, the flavor was nice and deep with a good crust.

Directions

Levain Ingredients & Directions

200 grams French Style Flour (KAF, or use AP Flour)

100 grams Whole Wheat Flour (KAF)

105 grams Seed Starter at 65% hydration (If you use a 100% hydration starter you need to adjust the water amount and flour amount to compensate)

178 grams Water at room temperature

Mix all the above ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.  I usually do this the night before.

Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

Main Dough Ingredients

458 grams  Starter from above

350 grams French Style Flour (KAF)

50 grams Dark Rye (Pumpernickel Flour, KAF)

54 grams Toasted Wheat Germ (KAF)

17 grams Seas Salt or Table Salt (I used Hickory Smoked Sea Salt)

312 grams Water at room temperature

Procedure

Mix the flours, and 275 grams of the water together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Let it rest in your work bowl covered for 20-30 minutes.  Next add the salt, starter (cut into about 7-8 pieces) and mix on low for a minute.  Add the rest of the water unless the dough is way too wet.   Mix on low-speed for another 3 minutes.  Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove the dough and shape as desired.  I made 1 large batard shape but you can make boules or other shapes.  Place your dough into your proofing basket(s) and cover with a moist tea towel or plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray.  The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature.  Let the dough dictate when it is read to bake not the clock.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, score as desired and then add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 450 degrees.  Bake for 35-50 minutes until the crust is nice and brown and the internal temperature of the bread is 205 degrees.

Take the bread out of the oven when done and let it cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.

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-Update 14/09/11: added some photos of 100% WW and 70% WG Rye

-Update 15/09/11: added crumb shots of 100% WW and 70% WG Rye

Initially I only planned to bake two kinds of bread that fitted well into a family holiday schedule:

7.00 being woken by our 5 year old

7.15 to 7.30 preparing pre-ferment (rye sour or biga)

8.30 breakfast

9.30 to 19.00 being busy with having fun

19.30 to 22.30 baking time

As it turned out this schedule worked very well, but peer pressure from TFL and the family made me bake a much greater variety of bread, specifically: Bara Brith, Pain de Campagne with variations, 70% Rye sourdough with variations, Potato Bread, 100% Wholewheat Sourdough, Pizza, White French Bread

Unfortunately I can't post many pictures as the camera charger gave up during the holiday, but I will bake some of the breads again in the near future and post photos then.

Notes about the formulae (explicit formulae follow below):

1. Bara Brith: I used Elizabeth David's recipe – it is a very dry dough, so I added a bit more milk. The original uses 150 ml milk per 450g flour, I used 170g milk. I also used a different flour mix: 400g strong white flour (Hovis) plus 50g wholewheat flour (Tesco's strong stoneground organic). Very nice result. Below my first try, with a bit of Welsh countryside:

2. Pain de Campagne after DiMuzio (I have his “Appendix Of Formulas” on my phone). Once by the book and once with biga and 50% wholewheat. Both turned out nice, but the latter one could be tweaked.

3. Potato Bread (after Elizabeth David). I used the original formula – this uses 4.4% salt. As I had no idea how potatoes would affect salinity I went for it. Nice bread (smell, consistency), but too salty. Couldn't eat it. I'll retry with 2% salt.

4. French bread: 300g flour, 200g water, 6g salt, 2g instant yeast. Mixed and proofed in the evening, retarded in fridge and baked before breakfast.

5. 100% Wholewheat Sourdough, inspired by DiMuzio and Andy, great result, formula given below.

6. 70% Rye sourdough with variations. Details given below.

 It was quite amazing to see how all of this baking fit in with our busy holiday schedule, without putting too much strain on family life.

 100% wholewheat sourdough:

 Straight formula:

Wholewheat flour 423g (100%)

Water 317g (75%)

Salt 8.5g (2%)

Yield 748.5g (177%)

 Flour from Soaker: 33% at 75% hydration

Flour from preferment: 33% at 75% hydration

 Soaker (kept in fridge for 12 hours):

Flour: 141g

Water: 105g

 Preferment (kept on bench for 12 hours, at 22C):

WW flour: 141g

Water: 105g

Mature rye starter (80% hydration): 25g

 Adjusted Dough:

Flour: 141g

Water: 105g

Salt: 8.5g

Soaker: 246g

Preferment: 246g

 Bulk proof at 24C: 1.5 hours

Shaped into loose boule,

Final proof: ca. 2 hours

Reshaped boule into loose envelope shape (as in some of the Pane di Altamura videos)

baked immediately at ca. 230C for 30 minutes without steam.

Complex taste and quite open crumb for a 100% wholegrain bread.

Photos of the bake on 14/09/11 (a 750g loaf)

The dough after final proof (could have done a little longer, but started to get fragile)

After shaping (right into the oven from here):

And after the bake:

 Crumb

The crumb of the 100% wholewheat bread is not great, nowhere near the nice open structure of the bread I made in Wales, although I think this one tastes even better. I attribute the crumb appearence to a number of causes:

1. I rushed this bread (a mix of family duties and misjudgement of the dough development)

2. The starter was slightly over its maximum

3. The flours I used here were quite different: I am running out of stock and had to use a mix of Canadian high gluten wholewheat with low gluten wholewheat (both from Waitrose), whereas for the holiday bread I used Tesco's strong organic stoneground wholewheat.

4. I stretched the dough too much when shaping.

I'll work on this and report back in a separate post.

70% Rye with variations

Update 14/09/11: Got the percentages slightly wrong when I wrote my notes - this now reflects what I actually baked. Must have been tired ...

These breads are based on the German Mischbrot formula which I posted earlier

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23830/german-baking-day

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23956/detmolder-sourdough-and-without-yeast-comparison

 Straight Formula:

WG Rye flour: 70%

WG Wheat flour: 30%

Water: 75%

Salt: 2%

Instant Yeast: 0.3% (optional)

WG Rye flour from preferment: 28% at 80% hydration, (using 10% ripe WG rye starter, 12 hours on bench)

WG Wheat flour from soaker: 30% at 74% hydration (12 hours in fridge)

WG Rye flour from scald: 22% at 80% hydration, after cooling kept in fridge

I used different amounts of instant yeast to stagger the breads – I could only bake one loaf at a time.

Bulk fermentation ranged from 45 min to 2 hours, final proof for 1 hour at 22C.

The loaves were shaped with wet hands into rounds for freestanding bake.

I made 4 variations of this bread; all had a wonderfully complex taste:

1. Without soaker and scald, with 20% sunflower seeds

2. as given

3. as given, plus 20% sunflower seeds

4. as given, plus 3% caraway seeds

Despite the quite strong taste these breads go very well with all sorts of foods, even jams. Stilton cheese complements the bread flavours especially well.

Photos of the bake on 14/09/11 (two 750g loaves)

Crumb:

A very pleasing bread.

Juergen

Yesterday I was researching various rye bread formulas and techniques trying to come up with something I could make with what I have on hand (dark rye flour and from a sour dough culture). I was thinking of a Jewish or a German Rye. The Bread Baker's Apprentice was a little help but still didn't have a formula to go on. Several years ago a friend (he was the head baker in the first bakery I use to work at) gave me his formulas, study guides and notes from when he attended Dunwoody Institute back in the early 1960's. I pulled those formulas out and found one for a Sponge Dark Sour Rye.  Here are the results.  2 of the 3-1 1/2 # loaves.  Baked 2 tonight and will bake the 3rd in the morning.

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A few months ago I made a loaf of Russian coriander rye which was not Russian enough and way too coriandery.    I have been meaning to get back to it with changes since then but so much bread, so little time.   Today, I used that bread as a starting point and tried again in the process losing all of the Russian and most of the coriander.   This is a mostly dark rye bread with some spelt and wheat flour.   It uses a dark rye sour seeded from wheat starter.   It was quite wet, so I shaped by patting and stippled instead of scored.   The crust is covered by mixed seeds - sesame, poppy, caraway, and a tiny bit of coriander.   In my original version I used molasses, honey, and oil.   I ditched all of that this time.   Dark rye has plenty of flavor without the sweeteners and I couldn't remember what the oil was for.    All in all, a tasty rich bread.

The formula

Build starter the day before and leave on counter for 17 hours until very holey and sour smelling.   Mix all but salt and seeds.   Autolyze for 1 hour.   Mix in salt.   Move dough to wet bowl and pat into ball.   Brush top and sides with water.   Leave on counter until it expands a fair amount but not until dough shows signs of breakdown.    This took around 2 hours.   Flip onto parchment paper - I had to use a wet wooden spatula to get it out of the bowl since the dough was so sticky.   Brush out irregularities with a wet pastry brush.   Stipple with a fork.   Sprinkle with seed mix.    Bake at 450F on stone with steam for 25 minutes, and 25 without. 

The last time I made caraway rye bread, I used the recipe in The Joy of Cooking. We really like it. But as I was leafing through The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, I noticed her recipe for rye bread. A recipe that looked too good.

Whenever my father had an excuse to return to the Bronx, he'd never come back without a freshly baked loaf from his favourite bakery. I liked the rye bread, studded with constellations of caraway seeds, best. My grandmother, who lived with us, would serve it to me spread thickly with unsalted btutter, the top paved with rounds of sliced red radishes. - Rose Levy Beranbaum, The Bread Bible, page 324

How could I not try this bread?

As it turns out, this is the best rye bread we've had. Thank you, Rose Levy Beranbaum!!

• caraway rye bread recipe based on the recipe for "Levy's" Real Jewish Rye Bread on p.324-328 in Rose Levy Beranbaum's BREAD BIBLE

I would love to have tried the bread with butter and sliced radishes. But we didn't have any radishes.... Initially, I had thought we would be making Reuben sandwiches with it. But my husband was so thrilled with how light it was that we decided to serve it with goulash and steamed broccoli. It was brilliant!

-Elizabeth