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Made another bread with all ruchmehl - a Swiss "semi whole" wheat flour. Used some quite old unfed rye starter from the fridge (maybe around 25 g?), 450 g ruchmehl, 330 g warm water, 11 g salt. Mixed with a hand mixer and spiral attachments until moderate gluten development. Did three folds about 30 min apart, then left at around 28ºC for a few hours, until nicely grown and airy. Preshaped, and then shaped into a batard, left to final proof overnight on the balcony. Baked in the morning on steel 230ºC around 15 min with steam, then 210ºC without steam until good colour.

Inspiration

Lance (albacore) recently made some Chelsea buns that finally pushed me into making a cinnamon-style bun. My mother used to buy cinnamon buns at the supermarket and they were pretty bad and slathered in icing. She'd heat them up in the toaster oven as a treat. The thing I remember most was their bread part was flavourless and then you'd get a bit of cinnamon and an overly-sweet icing.

This is my second attempt at home solod (unroasted this time).  

This recipe for Black Rye Bread with Buttermilk is from Der Foodcoach blog. I did not have Austrian R960 (light) rye flour or fresh yeast and used King Arthur Medium Rye and IDY instead. But I do have a lot of Wingold Dark Rye from Bay State Milling via NYBakers that was used for the Schwarzroggen (black rye).

Extremely flavorful and tasty. Amazing crust! 

Stage 1

100g rye flour

100g lukewarm water

10g rye starter

Mix into a ball, let ferment 12-16 hours,  until expanded, spongy and light colored inside and smelling acidic

Stage 2

All of the above 

650g lukewarm water

650g rye flour 

100g sunflower seeds 

100g flax seeds

30g salt

Bread spices, if desired (I used ground caraway) 

I roasted 100g of each rye, barley and soft wheat. Final weight after roasting was 262g

First project is homemade Polish style small beer (podpiwek)

Podpiwek recipe:

80g roasted grain, coarsely ground

20g any dark barley malt, crushed 

200g sugar

20ml lemon juice

Optionally, small handful of hops and/or orange peel

10-15 untreated raisins 

¼-½ teaspoon dry yeast

1 gallon of water

No secret I love barley flour in my bakes.  It's just a flavor I enjoy.  This bake is based on a recipe in The Finnish Cookbook by Beatrice Ojakangas.  I converted from volume to weight as best I could and took a few liberties.

1)  I replace half the rye flour with rye chops
2)  I added a YW pre-ferment that incorporated all the rye flour and half of the barley flour
3)  I used the rye chops, half the barley flour, and crushed fennel seed in a whole milk scald
4)  Eliminated the butter

Day before, afternoon:

2 cups whole grain rye flour, 1 teaspoon of rye starter from the fridge, enough water to form a ball of dough; cover and leave to ferment in a lukewarm spot 

Baking day, late morning:

All preferment,  2 cups whole wheat flour,  2 cups whole rye flour,  enough water to form very soft dough, salt to taste (around 2-2½ teaspoons), favorite seeds (flax, etc.)

Let ferment until nicely expanded 

I'm a cheapskate and an experimentalist so I'm always thinking of ways to cut corners. I wondered how well I could control temperature using a crockpot and a cheap controller.

So, I got the Inkbird C206T controller and used a rubber band to strap its sensor to a quart jar with 500g of water and my floating bluetooth thermometer inside. I filled the crockpot with enough water to match the water level in the jar, covered the whole thing with a "shower cap" and a small blanket. I set the controller for 43.5C. 

I made Fleischmann’s Rye Batter Bread a couple of years ago as I was easing back into bread baking. It was an easy recipe that produced a decent loaf of rye bread. I revisited this recipe a couple of months ago because a shoulder injury limited the amount hand mixing and kneading I could do.