Rye with flax and sunflower seeds.
I've been lurking for a while and this is my first blog post. Thanks for everyone for making this site great. I am an amateur and have been baking bread for a couple years. My daughters and I made a sourdough starter named Charlotte early on. I keep her on the counter and we feed her mostly everyday and she has been refrigerated once or twice for short periods. She goes on trips with us as well. She lives in Mississippi and has vacationed Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois.
This was an adaptation from a Rye Flaxseed formula in Hamelman's Bread. I didn't use commercial yeast and added some sunflower seeds.
I used Hodgson Mill Rye flour and Sam's Club bread flour. I did a bulk ferment for 2.5 hours followed by one hour proof in cotton lined bannetons. This is shorter than my typical sourdough proof but they loaves looked good to go. I attributed to the significant percentage of overall flour in the levain. Shaping was difficult as Rye is very sticky to work with. Scoring went better than the last time so I felt ok with taking pictures of the finished product.
Taste-wise the family loved it. Even the two young ones who generally scoff at anything not white bread.
Comments
As with a lot of other TFLers around these parts, I too was a silent observer for maybe 4-6 months. Having stumbled across the site as probably most of us have done, I just kept my keyboard to myself before registering.
Those are two wonderful looking loaves you have there. Well shaped, well scored and dark baked as I like 'em. I also prefer medium chunky starters ;-)
You may find over time that you will prefer to change the feeding schedule of your starter. In general the lower the hydration, the longer they can tolerate long cold existences without a refresh. My 60% rye lasts at least 4-5 months without a refresh, and my 75% mixed flours starter has gone about 2 months between refreshes, with no degradation of quality observed. it just gives you a lot more freedom over their maintenance, although they may never get a chance to bubble in all of the lower 48 states.
Lovely breads. alan
Those are really beautiful! Is it 100% rye, or more of a deli-style rye with some percentage of wheat flour? Rye is truly a pain to work with, isn't it? :) I find it's easier to handle when it is cold, so you might try putting the bulk dough in the fridge for a bit before shaping.
Welcome aboard!
Thanks for the compliments.
Chunky indeed. It took a few minutes to get the reference! That's the second jar for Charlotte. One was dropped and shattered. It was so hard to get the starter going that I scooped up a small amount and nurtured it back to life with many feed and dumps. I will have to try the refrigerated method of keeping it. I have been wary about changes to how I keep it. I weighed water and flour daily for several months. It has just been over the last few months that I moved from water that has sit out overnight in a pitcher to jsut plain tap water. I know people say these things are hearty but there are tons of horror stories out there so I have been very detail oriented. Iy my wife has any say so she will bubble in all 50 states one day. The wife loves to travel.
These loaves are 60% rye. I tried this over a year ago and they came out pretty dense and stuck to everything. I have mostly baked the same simple white with a small amount of rye and wheat sourdough recipe for a while now. I got the recipe from a local bakery that had a baking class. It was a great class and hope they have more in the future.
Thanks for checking out the bake and I will post more in the future.
all the way around. Like Alan, I too keep a stiff whole rye starter in the fridge for months at a time with no maintenance or feeding - no nothing. It is nice not to be tied sown to a starter and not have any discard waste. Here is a link
No Muss No Fuss StarterWelcome and happy baking
jealous, and now wants medium chunky whole rye flour. Try telling a starter about peanuts.
Get your hands wet to shape rye dough, makes clean up a breeze too. Lovely rye loaves!
DB, your typos make me smile! :) ...and it keeps on raining... the road is threatening to wash out and good thing we have a quarry next door. They are dumping truckloads of boulders every 4 minutes. The Mekong is at a record high, don't know what's going on downstream :( but it can't be good. Don't worry about me, we have a second road so we're not trapped yet. I decided to make it a baking day. Ha! I'm making rye bread in my lasagna pan and lasagna in my pullman pan. :) Rye stars! It all smells so good!