The Fresh Loaf

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Experimenting with sourdough rye

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

Experimenting with sourdough rye

Last night, sometime past midnight, I got a craving for sourdough rye bread.  I had dark rye flour and some starter I made from the same flour a couple weeks back, the first time I made my own starter instead of using commercial stuff from sourdo.com.

Also, I was looking for something to do with the bag of semolina I got at the bulk foods section of the local Winco Foods market, the same place I got the rye flour.  Found a post on TFL about a sandwich loaf made with semolina that got huge oven spring and decided to throw some in the mix.

Anyway, sometime past midnight and suffering from caffien-induced sleeplessness I whipped up a batch of dough as follows:

Ingredients:

50g Semolina (yellowish stuff, coarser than bread flour)

200g unbleached bread flour

250g dark rye flour

333g water (I suppose I could just use ml but I don't have a graduate like I used to use in chemistry class once upon a time)

1.5 teaspoon salt

~1 tablespoon of my homebrew rye starter from the fridge - sorta neglected, sour and hungry stuff

Procedure:

Mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl, the water and starter in another bowl, added the liquid to the dry stuff, and tried to make dough with my recently purchased Danish dough whisk that was actually made in Poland.  Found the dough was too thick to mix with the whisk so turned it out on the counter and kneaded it into submission - sticky stuff, but not as sticky as I recall similar dough with no semolina being. Made a log of the dough and plopped it in a breadpan lightly greased with olive oil, spritzed the top with oil, and covered it with plastic wrap.

Results (so far):

Got up around noon, found the stuff hadn't begun to rise noticeably.  At this hour (9PM my time) it has risen some but not enough to fill the bread pan.  More later, time to watch Hawaii 5 OH.

Comments

cranbo's picture
cranbo

I'm curious, why'd you use so little starter?

My guess is that using only 5% starter will make your bread take forever to rise.

Let us know how long it takes to almost double during bulk fermentation (1st rise). 

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

I'm curious, why'd you use so little starter?

Because

1.  I didn't have much on hand, and didn't want to use it all.

2.  I didn't want to take a day or two or three to feed it up into a bigger batch of starter.

3.  It was really late at night and sleepy people do silly things when they have a craving for rye bread.

You're right, it's taking an awful long time to rise!

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

At 1:30AM  I decided the rise was more stubborn than I am and, rather than leaving overnight and risking a "dough overflow", I stuck it in the fridge for the night.  I gotta overcome this irregular sleep pattern I've fallen into since I retired!  But the internet is so fascinating...

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

I took the pan out of the fridge at ~10:30AM.  No obvious rise overnight in the fridge, but some expansion in the hour or so it's been warming up to room temperature.

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

At 3:30PM after ~30 total hours on the kitchen counter + ~9 hours in the fridge over night I lost patience with waiting for the dough to fill the loaf pan, snapped a picture and stuck it in a cold oven set to bake at 450F.  Hopefully the slow warmup will promote oven spring, but who knows.  I've had rye loaves shrink in the oven instead of getting bigger.  Photos before and after baking should document what happens this time. 

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

I baked it until the bottom sounded hollow, took a bite and snapped a couple more pictures.  It shrank in the oven and tastes more like a pickle than what I think of as bread.  I consider it a failed experiment, unless one is fond of bread that's as sour as a pickle.  I am losing faith in this homebrew rye starter I have - it has an interesting, fruity taste coming out of the fridge but this the second or third rye loaf I've made with it that was unpalatably sour.  Maybe I'll tinker with it a bit more, maybe I won't.

Herewith I present photo-documentation of this unhappy experiment:

raw dough just before baking^

loaf after baking^ (note shrinkage)

crumb shot^

cranbo's picture
cranbo

Don't lose hope in your starter.

Because of the relatively small innoculation of yeast, it doesn't surprise me that you got these results. A 30+ hour fermentation with a small amount of starter, especially at room temp, is going to yield a sour result.

If you had used more than 5% starter, I bet it would have risen more quickly, and you'd likely have had better results. Try 30% or more next time. 

As Paul mentioned, having a refreshed, healthy starter would've probably helped too. And I agree, the bread looks surprisingly good for the conditions it was in. 

 

pmccool's picture
pmccool

why so many formulae call for a "ripe" starter/levain.  In other words, one that is well fed and at peak expansion.  It will deliver the maximum quantity of active yeast cells to the waiting dough to power its fermentation.

That said, you had surprisingly good results for your inputs.  Those holes in the top of the dough suggest that it was beginning to break down; quite possibly from gluten destruction by acids or enzymes produced in the extended ferment.  So, no surprise that you didn't see any oven spring.

The dough was probably also overproofed.  You mention waiting for the dough to fill the pan.  You started with around 800g of dough.  If that's an 8x4 inch pan, it should have been fairly full of dough to begin with.  At a guess, I'd say your neglected starter is doing better at hosting bacteria (the kind you want) than it is hosting yeast.  Sounds like time for several days of 2 to 3 feedings a day at room temperature to get the starter back in tune.

Better luck next time.

Paul

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

I think you're pretty close to right on all points.  The starter was low on yeastybeasties and high on sourbugs, and 30 hours of fermentation is way past sensible or optimum.  I checked the dimensions on that pan and it's 5"x9" at the top and 2.5" deep.

Aside from time and effort, feeding a rye culture requires rye flour, which I have to drive 25 miles to fetch and which costs me more than wheat flour.  This would OK, but the volunteer sourbugs in this homebrew culture seem overly enthustiatic, nay obnoxiously hyperactive, compared to the yeastybeasties.  It seem to get too sour too fast.  I don't know if that's characteristic of all rye cultures or if I just had bad luck when I called for volunteer microorganisms.  Of course if acidity is needed to neutralize the rye enzymes maybe this culture is a good choice for that, but bread that tastes like a pickle is not what I prefer to eat. 

There can be profound differences between cultures and the yummiest I have ever used is the Finland culture sourdo.com sells - sort of nutty with minimal acidity.

If I don't dump this homebrew rye culture down the drain I definitely need to maintain it better.

bobkay1022's picture
bobkay1022

Hmmmmmmmmm  I thought I fed mine to the birds when it looked like that .

    Mine was worse than that so keep up the good work it will get better. Mean while the birds will start knocking on your door for more bread.  Well almost like that.

Mr. Bob

 

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

I didn't throw that loaf out and it turns out that it gets more edible when it's aged a day or two.  It seems to have gotten less sour!  I assume that some of the acidity was volatile acetic acid or something like it and simply evaporated.

I've been taking 1/4-inch thick slices off it and making corned beef sandwiches in the last few days.  It's chewy and a bit tangy, but aside from drying out a bit it's aging remarkably well on my counter!

nicodvb's picture
nicodvb

even in rare cases when my rye bread came out sour the next day sourness was gone. Curiously the same improvement never happened with my wholemeal wheat breads (awful!).

ph_kosel's picture
ph_kosel

Everything considered I think my homebrew rye starter has earned a reprieve from the garbage disposal.  Next time I use it, however, I intend to feed it up properly in advance and perhaps perform the arcane "Detmolder" ritual to boot. 

I'm going out today to stock up on more rye flour, and perhaps also some Golden Temple Durum Atta Flour from the local Indian grocer.