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This weekend I decided to start my journey into rye breads with Hamelman's 40% Caraway rye but I chickened out of the 40% reducing it to 30% for this first try(double anything I have made before).

Last night I mixed the rye levain and left overnight on bench.

300g rye meal flour

100g Hi grade (11.5% protein so not quite Hamelman's Hi gluten flour)

332 g water

20 gm starter.

This morning I added 600 g Hi grade flour

348g water

17.5 g caraway seed

18 g salt and 4.2g instant yeast.

I don't use my Kenwood Chef mixer anymore, just making everything by hand, so wondered how this would turn out.  I did a couple of gentle slap & folds followed by quote a few stretch and folds. I kept hands wet and was happy with dough so left it to bulk ferment about 75 minutes as room temperature was cooler than he suggested. I got some rise but not a huge amount, perhaps 30% at most. Hamelman does not say how much to bulk ferment, just 60 minutes for doughs upto 50% rye. Here it is before dividing and shaping. 

Starting point was between the 2 top marks.  Here is a photo of 2 of the shaped loaves before proofing

I proofed loaves the time Hamelman suggested. No idea if proofed enough although finger poke indicated it was ok. (photo below) I made 2 x 500 and 1 x approx 740 gram batards.  I wanted to check baking options again, so one 500 g loaf was baked in my usual DO and the other in an oval stainless steel lidded caserole dish - both preheated with the oven for just over an hour . 

I baked the loaves at 240°C for 15 minutes then removed lids and dropped temperature a little and baked for another 18 minutes. After 5 minutes, the loaf in stainless dish was not browning much so I removed it and the parchment and finished the bake on oven rack just above my stones. At the 18 minute mark, I removed the right hand loaf from the Do , checked internal temperature as as it was 209°F kept it out of the oven.  The other loaf needed about another 3-4 minutes to reach this temperature and to get a good colour. 

Reheated the oven and DO and baked the larger batard in a similar manner.  

This is the crumb shots of both the 500 g batards, the left hand loaf is the one from the stainless "DO" and despite the identical treatment up until baking, the finished loaf is different. There doesn't seem to be as much ovenspring (altho side by side they have similar height) when you look at the crumb and crust on bottom is thinner.

Here is the crumb of larger batard.

Overall an interesting bake. 

Don't quite understand the differences in the crumb.

The flavour is nice, I have never been a fan of caraway seed in a cake so I wondered how I would find it in bread. I possibly should have reduced the caraway a little because I used less rye?  and excuse the funny question, but do you ever use ground caraway or is it normal in rye breads to use it as I have, ie as a seed?

Will definitely make this again though.

Leslie