The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

sourdough rye

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Light Rye & pumpernickel

Light Rye & pumpernickel

Silesian Light Rye from Leader's "Local Breads"

Silesian Light Rye from Leader's "Local Breads" 

Silesian Light Rye crumb

Silesian Light Rye crumb 

Pumpernickel crumb

Pumpernickel crumb 

The Silesian Light Rye from Daniel Leader's "Local Breads" is even lighter than the usual "Jewish Sour Rye." It is a lovely bread that my wife and I always enjoy fresh or toasted.

 Leader's recipe calls for free form loaves, but I've usually made it in brotformen. I recently bought a couple of oval brotformen from SFBI, and this was their maiden voyage. The dough was quite extensible. It was hard to form the loaves short enough for the brotform, so they ended up sort of brot-deformed. 

Also, Leader calls for caraway seeds as an optional coating, but I like them in the bread, so I added them for the final minute of mixing.

Greenstein's pumpernickel is another favorite of mine. It is made with rye sour, pumpernickel flour, first clear flour and altus (stale rye bread, soaked in water, then wrung out and added to the dough). I use granular caramel coloring, which not only makes the color "black" but adds a bitter flavor without which this bread just doesn't taste "right" to me. This is a bread that makes good sandwiches, but my favorite way to eat it is spread with cream cheese , untoasted, as an accompaniment to scrambled eggs. That's my breakfast for tomorrow morning.

Dough for Nury's rye is retarding to bake tomorrow. I'm thinking of cutting some of the dough into squares to bake as rolls (hamburger buns?). I may set up another bread or two, if time allows.

Hey! I haven't baked for the past two weeks. I was getting kind of twitchy. I feel so much better now. :-)

David

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Rusian rye bread 2 boules

Rusian rye bread 2 boules

Russian Rye Boule

Russian Rye Boule

Russian Rye Crumb

Russian Rye Crumb

Sauve posted the formula for this bread in Kosher-Baker's blog topic, "Diary of a Starter." As a confirmed rye bread lover, I was curious about how it would compare with the Jewish, Czech and Polish ryes I had already baked. I'm glad I tried it.

Formula: 

Firm starter (73% hydration):

43 g. rye starter
195 g. whole rye flour - must be finely groud
142 g. water

Mix, cover and leave for 6-7 hours at 85-90 F.  The original recipe calls for 1/3 of the mother starter and fermenting for 3-4 hours, but I find that using more traditional proportions and doubling the fermentation time works equally well.

Dough (69% hydration):
97 g. whole rye flour
290 g. high extraction flour
333 g. starter
261 g. water
9 g. salt
17 g. sugar
1 g. instant yeast

Mix all ingredients and knead until you have well developed gluten.  In KA it takes me about 12 minutes at second speed.  Ferment 80 min at 85-90 F.  Flatten the dough and shape a tight boule.  Proof in basket, seam up, 50 minutes at room temperature.  There's no need to slash.  Spray with water before baking and 1 minute before taking out of the oven. Bake with steam 50 minutes at 440-450.  Let the bread cool thorougly, 2 hours at least.  The loaf should have shiny surface without tears and tight uniform crumb.  Using medium rye flour instead of whole rye and/or bread flour instead of high extraction flour also works well.

 

I used my white rye starter and fed it with Guisto's Organic (whole) rye flour. I used this rye flour and KA First Clear flour in the dough. I mixed in a KitchenAid Accolade. Rather than making one large boule, I divided the dough in half and made 2 boules of 525 gms each. They proofed in wicker brotformen. I baked them on a stone with steam from hot water into a hot cast iron skillet. The boules were baked for 25 minutes at 450F. I turned the oven down to 440F, because the boules were getting pretty dark pretty fast, and continued to bake for a total of 40 minutes.

The crust remained very firm, even after the loaves were fully cooled. The crumb is like that Suave showed - rather dense but not dry or "heavy" in the mouth. The taste is decidedly sour (surprisingly so). If I were doing a blind taste of this bread, I would not identify it as a rye. It tastes more like a whole wheat sourdough bread to me. There is a noticeable sweet taste, too. I assume this is from the sugar. I don't think I have ever baked a sourdough bread with added sugar before, although I have used malt and honey in sourdoughs, when the recipe called for them. I expect the bread to mellow overnight and taste significantly different tomorrow.

My thanks to Suave for sharing this recipe. If he (or others) would like to tell us more about the background of this bread, I'm sure it would be appreciated.

 David

possum-liz's picture

Help!! I want to bake 100% rye sourdough

May 12, 2008 - 3:49pm -- possum-liz

HELP!!! I bake a lot for my friends and one of them want's 100% rye sourdough (she's a food purist).  I bake different sourdoughs all the time based on my white starter and feeding up to what ever type I want.  BUT my 100% rye is more like a brick. 

Any recipes/suggestions woud be much appreciated.  I'm in Australia so flour brands are different. For those Aussies among us I use Demeter's light and whole rye flours. I also have whole rye grain ,cracked rye and rolled rye to play with. 

Hope to hear from somebody out there.

Liz

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Polish Cottage Rye

Polish Cottage Rye

Polish Cottage Rye - Crumb

Polish Cottage Rye - Crumb

Multigrain Sourdough

Multigrain Sourdough

Multigrain Sourdough - Crumb

Multigrain Sourdough - Crumb

 

Both of these are breads I've baked several times before and enjoy a lot. This weekend, I ran out of King Arthur bread flour and substituted Golden Buffalo flour in both breads. We had some of the Multigrain Sourdough for breakfast. As I came out for breakfast, my wife, who was just finishing hers, greeted me with, "That's amazing bread." 

David

dmsnyder's picture

Greenstein's Corn (rye) bread

November 18, 2007 - 7:28pm -- dmsnyder

Greenstein's Corn Bread is the ultimate Jewish rye, and it is unique in the technique with which it is made. The ingredients are the usual - rye sour, rye flour, common flour (AKA first clear flour), yeast and caraway seeds. And water. The crust is glazed with a corn starch/water mixture.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - sourdough rye