Hello,

I'm new to the forums but am learning lots already from the posts.  Wanted to share with you my baked bread of the week.  All three made Friday in Hawaii.

Buckwheat Sourdough Rolls

Light Rye -- with my first attempt at dusting (I did it by hand, I now realize I should have sifted it on)

And lastly, Semolina Country Bread.   This dough was amazingly soft.   I decided to braid it.

I've been somewhat obsessed with rye bread, and haven't had much success.

I made the rye starter Handleman describes, and nurtured it for almost 2 weeks, with it demonstrating plenty of activity, and using the discards from feedings to make some successful 1-2-3 sourdough.  So I know the starter is good.

The Hamelman formula calls for building the sourdough with 0.2 oz mature rye starter, 4.8 oz Medium rye flour, and 3.8 oz water.  It says you can substitute 'whole dark rye' but you may need to add more water in the sourdough phase.  I used Hogson Mills Rye flour, and from a previous inquiry, the company replied and said it was a medium rye flour, and that it was a whole grain rye flour.  I have read that the nomenclature for rye flours in the US is totally confusing, and I certainly believe it.

I mixed the sourdough phase, and it was a stiff starter consistency.  I left it to ripen all day ,and came home to some thick moist cement consistency stuff in the container, which had not puffed or risen at all, and was far to thick to exhibit any gas bubbles.

The first few times I tried to mix the Glezer light rye using that same Hogson Mills rye flour, I got thick concrete that did not seem to ferment (using her formula of my white flour stiff sourdough starter with rye flour and water).  When I made her's today, using the light rye flour (Bob's Red Mill), I got a much less thick rye sour, and it rose nicely along side the Handleman sourdough that did nothing, attesting to the temperature in the kitchen being acceptable for culture to grow.

I finally obtained first clear flour (got it from a local kosher bakery, after getting over my reluctance to go in and ask them to sell me some flour) and light rye (Bob's Red Mill, bought over the internet, as I couldn't find it locally anywhere!), and made the traditional NY Deli (aka Jewish Rye) in Maggie Gleezer's Blessing of Bread.  It has about 10 minutes to go in the oven, and looks and smells amazing, if I do say so myself.  Shaping is far from perfect, but you can tell what it's supposed to be, if you know what I mean.  If I can figure out how to post a photo, I will make it my debut photo post here.

So here (finally!) are my questions:

1.  Can I add water to the Handleman sourdough phase at this point and salvage it, or do I need to start from scratch (I can, I have plenty of the rye starter)?

2.  If I add water, how much.  Or, what consistency am I aiming for?  He doesn't offer any descriptors.

3.  If I start fresh, how much extra water should I add?  Again, what consistency am I aiming for?

4.  What flour do you use/recommend for "medium rye"?

Thanks, as always, for your help and suggestiong.

This is what I pulled out of my oven today, a good 2kg of dough worth. First a small batch of light rye rolls made somewhat according to the instructions for making sourdough italian bread that was posted here earlier by Dmsnyder i think. The formula does only call for white flour but as I live in sweden I find that breads should contain at least a small portion of rye!

I made the dough with 20% rye flour wich gives you a dough that handles exactly like a wheat dough but with greater taste and also a somewhat drier feel, due to the high ash content of my whole grain rye flour, I also topped them with a mixture of wheat bran and rolled oats so they resemble the kind of "fake healthy" bread you can buy in stores and bakeries here in sweden.

The other breads were two sunflower ryes as per BBA, made with 30%rye starter and really coarse rye meal for the rye content in the dough. Lightly toasted sunflower seeds make for a lovely taste, can´t wait to open these babies! I have started tt get a bit better at shaping since I studied Marks videos, that technique is far superior to my prevoius attempts. Now I only have to make room for the loaves in my freezer! '

Here are some pictures of a batch of Hamelman's light rye that I made using a couple of dutch ovens simultaneously.  I did the entire mixing/kneading process by hand just to be able to get a good feel for the dough.  I doubled Hamelman's recipe and made 2 three pound loaves using 2 dutch ovens. We're talking "serious workout" by hand :-)  I also did a a couple of stretch and folds during bulk fermentation (20 minute intervals).  He calls for dividing the dough for a single batch into two 1 1/2 pound loaves but I decided, since I had doubled his recipe, I would bake 2 large 3 pound boules using 2 dutch ovens.  I used 2 large parchment lined skillets to proof the loaves under 2 large clear plastic bins (Walmart), then holding each end of the parchment I lifted each loaf into a preheated 500 deg. F. dutch oven (oven mittens highly recommended for this procedure), put on the lids on placed them into the oven and immediately lowered the oven temp. to 450 deg. F.  Baked them for 25 minutes, took off the lid and let them top brown for about 10-12 minutes.  Then shut off the oven and cracked the door for another five minutes before removing them from the oven.  At the end of the baking cycle the intermal temp. of the loaves was 205 deg. F.

I did not use carraway seeds in this interatation.  I wanted to compare Hamelman's light rye with Leader's Pierre Nury light rye to see the difference.  Hamelman's loaves turned out to be a very good without the carraway seeds.  But without the carraway seeds it didn't have the pronounced taste that you get with good Jewish rye, which the carraway seeds impart.  This recipe is slightly different from Leader's recipe, but very good.  I think Leader's Nury rye has a bit more flavor as a result of the process and the ovenight retardation in the fridge for 12-18 hours.  But overall they're both great recipes, only slightly different in taste and texture.  The Hamelman recipe is somewhat easier and quicker (uses a bit of yeast in the dough) but I still think it's near impossible to top the Nury rye.

Anyway, that's my experiment for the week. I recently bought a couple of bags of King Arthur whole grain with my last flour order, which have been sitting in the refrigerator waiting for some "action".  So, later this week I'm going to make some whole grain.  Haven't done the soaker thing yet but after seeing Eric Hanner's beautiful whole grain loaves he recently posted I'm anxious to try Mark Sinclair's recipe.

P.S. The memory stick on my camera filled up and I couldn't get a photo of the crumb (yeah, likely story) but it was nice and open. Not as nice and open, with large holes, as Leader's Nury rye but still a very nice crumb.

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 1

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 2

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 3

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 4

Hamelman's light rye no. 4

Hamelman's light rye no. 2

Nury's Light Rye from "Local Breads"

Nury's Light Rye2

Nury's Light Rye crumb

I know there have been several blog entries regarding Pierre Nury's "Light Rye" as described in "Local Breads" by Daniel Leader, but I felt a "reminder" of how wonderful this bread is would not be out of order. So ...

 This bread is wonderful!

David

This is a new recipe I made from Daniel Leader’s book, Local Breads, for a Parisian loaf of