Describe how rye dough behaves-a delicious new learning curve.
It's time for rye bread in my repetoire of bread. I have been dabbling and learning some skills to work up to it and I think I'm finally ready. I've been adding rye flour to my WW and the perfume of the dough has really been heady-there is something about rye. Probably DNA memory from my German genes!
What I want to understand first is how a dough based on rye flour forms a loaf. In wheat bread, the gluten strands form a "net" and the starch forms a gel and between the 2, gas is trapped,gluten stretches but holds and the gel contains the gas produced from the yeast. It is risen to the not-quite-bursting stage and then set in place by heat. A little simplistic but accurate. The amount of gel(starch) and gluten and the type of loaf you want to achieve influence how the ingredients are chosen and the technique used to handle.
But rye is a little different. I get the impression rye dough is a lot more gel and a lot less gluten. So the dough needs to be well hydrated and take its time to allow the starch to form.pH and enzymes have an effect on this.This more gel-like dough structure must dictate a different technique used for mixing,handling and fermenting! Please tell me all about it. Do I have the dough description correct?
I will be re-reading a lot of the past posts in my journey but I hope the rye masters will jump in and there will be a summary of expertise generated here in this one thread-all about rye.