NY Deli Rye, best result so far
Now that I have discovered a good source of Montreal smoked meat in town, I determined to do the deli rye from Peter Reinhart's, "Bread Baker's Apprentice." I have baked this recipe often, but this was the first time I built a fully rye starter. My previous starters were a wheat/rye mix. this time I starting from my mother, I fed with rye flour four times over three days and for the fourth and final feed added the sauteed yellow onions. After a few hours it was time to mix and bake.
I proofed the loaf seam side down in a round banneton and baked seam side up. The way the loaf kind of blew apart on top points to some deficiency in my seam sealing. As always this is a work in progress, stepping back to a method of baking I haven't done in two or so years.
Starting the oven at 400F, I then turned the oven down to 375F for 20 minutes with steam and finished at 350F for 20 minutes no steam. The resulting loaf was delicious with a soft crumb. Perfect for pile it on smoked meat sandwiches!
Though I halved Peter's original recipe, I ended up using a higher percentage of starter than the original -- 180 vs 164 grams. The only thing I would change next time I bake this is to make sure the onions are cut to a uniformly small dice. A little sloppy on my dicing, I had a few more larger chunks than I would like. Great recipe GREAT bread!
Happy baking, Ski