squattercity's blog

I read about Tony's Brotgewürz rye/wheat loaves & Ian's Onion Caraway Rye -- so, in a bout of cross-polinated insanity 🤣, I baked something you might categorize as halfway between the two.

It's got a chopped rye scald & a diastatic rye malt scald. I added a little lactose-free kefir (because it's what I had on hand) and 1% caraway.

final proportions (including the 2 scalds):

So, as some here may remember, I have had a variety of inconsistencies with my rye starter and my rye breads over the past year or so ... and, among the thoughts that the kind people on this site suggested was that I change up my routine and try some different rye flours. Though I'm not generally good at taking advice, I decided to have some fun with this. So I lined up 3 ryes:

As promised, a delayed side-by-side assessment.

So on Monday I baked a Chleb Sandomierski

crust like it emerged from a caveman's campfire, taste/aroma that makes you feel like you're picking fresh produce, and look at that glowing solar-flare-crumb:

Staring at this boule for too long can give you a sunburn! Better to eat it.

from Sarah Owens' book Sourdough.

45% whole rye/55% bread flour (all the rye prefermented with a 3% inoculation for 12 hours) ... 1% caraway ... 1% salt ... total hydration ~80%

20% hazelnut flour/20% rye (all prefermented)/60% bread flour, hydrated (mostly) with homemade hazelnut milk, lightly sweetened with grated white sweet potato.

No anise, no pernod, no problem. Here's a vitebsk rye in which I used absinthe as the flavoring. 

I awoke from uneasy dreams this morning at six to mess up another rye.

Past midnight last night, tired but too spaced to sleep, I mixed a preferment -- 11g of rye sourdough to 300g of whole rye flour (an inoculation rate of 3.6%) and 240g of water. I also stirred up a malt scald -- 10g of rye malt to 50g of hot water.

Over the past year, I've made lots of versions of Ilya's easy deli rye. This weekend, with only whole rye flour and bread flour on hand, I made a 45% rye version. It turned out lofty with a thin crispy crust and soft, lightly tangy interior and I wanted to share it and pay homage to a great, flexible formula.

Rob