Types of rye flour

Hi, I'm new here as well but I'm baking this rye bread today from Girl Meets Rye blog. Not sure if you bake sourdoughs but it's a fairly high hydration bread but has easy to follow instructions including pics. 

http://tartine-bread.blogspot.com/2011/09/in-rye-mood.html

 I can't just grind the grain and then throw it in bread can I? Don't you need to sift it?

Well first you may have to increase the moisture in the grain before milling. Site search: milling rye berries.   If you use the above recipe, it contains only 25% rye flour so it really isn't "another animal" and behaves pretty much like wheat dough (which it is) except a tiny bit sticky.  Resist the urge to add more flour while playing and use water moist hands instead.  You can add just about any grind of rye to the above in-the-mood recipe.

Increase the rye to 50% and we can talk about rye being very different,  Rye bread for me starts at about 60% of the total flour and goes up to pure rye bread.  Most tend to use rye flour as a flavouring in the United States with low levels of rye flour.  If you intend to make higher rye loaves (above 40%)  get a rye sourdough starter started.  It takes a good week to make one from scratch.  (So get started!)  Rye and sourdough are partners in getting great rye bread.  You can only go so far with lemon juice and 50% rye flour in the dough.

Protein content.  There is more protein content in the outer layers of the grain berry.  That means the more fibre you retain (don't sift out) the higher the protein level.   Unsifted rye flour is in the range of 15% protein.  (I love the stuff and bake with it when I can get it.)  If you sift out the rough stuff, save it and feed your starter culture with it.  (It loves it more than I do.)  Don't waste anything!  The more and finer the flour is sifted, the more the protein level drops until you are left with "white" rye flour.   Type in your forum title into the site search box for more info.  

Mini

My only suggestion would be to start by buying commercial rye flour for your first efforts. Rye is sort of its own category -- it's wet, low in gluten, etc. -- so it requires some understanding and techniques different from white or whole wheat doughs. Then, when you are really comfortable with rye in general, you can move on to milling your own grain. It's just a simplification of the process -- using rye flour from a commercial mill will remove that variable (Did I mill it right? Did I have the right berries/grind?) from the equation.

There are tons of good recipes available for interesting rye loaves, or even "boring" rye loaves that are easier. Visit your local library and see what they have in terms of rye cookbooks, or whole grain books. Take a look at theryebaker.com, a site from Stanley Ginsberg, who posts here and has a few books that feature rye loaves from various ethnic traditions.

Also, do a search here on TFL for Eric's Favorite Rye.  I've made it many times, and it's a good tasting, fairly simple rye. The original uses a rye starter (sourdough), but I think there is a version without that as well. Both should show up in your search.