Scorched Crust Sour Rye - Gersterbrot (Germany)
The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg
My latest bake - this bread has a nice light rye taste to it due to the amount of white rye in the recipe.
500ml lukewarm water
~1/4 cup homemade caramel color *
260g dark rye flour
300g bread flour
300g all purpose flour
9g dry yeast
5g onion powder
3g ground caraway seeds
18g salt
30g granulated sugar
*burn 2 heaped tablespoons od granulated sugar in a small saucepan until golden brown. Remove from heat. Be careful, it's hot like lava! Let cool then add ¼ cup boiling water and wait until everything dissolves. It will look like dark beer
I've wanted to try the tourte de seigle pur (100% rye bread) from l'Ecole international de boulangerie's video tutorial for a while.
The learning continues. Thanks to receiving a cornucopia of suggestions on my previous bake of the Bouabsa Pullman I moved forth and applied some of those changes, further upgrading my nascent Pullman pan skills.
This recipe is based on Hamelman's 80% Rye with a Rye Flour Soaker from Bread (3rd Ed.). I followed the recipe as written with two exceptions. I used a mash at 125% hydration instead of a soaker at 100% hydration, and I used a 50:50 barley:rye flour in the mash instead of all rye flour. The recipe calls for Medium Rye but states that Whole Rye can be substituted. I used fresh milled Whole Rye.
Here is my quasi recipe for this bread
Stage 1, scald
In a 6oz mason jar I scald 3 rounded tablespoons of whole rye flour with some boiling water, mix it into sticky mass, add 1 teaspoon of white rye malt, mix well, cover and let stand in a warm place for about 2-3 hours
Stage 2, kvas (liquid preferment)
Kümmel-Bier Brot (Caraway Beer Bread) from The Rye Baker book. This bread is for lovers of caraway seed (sorry Benny!); it has a whopping 2% caraway seed. The bread is 50% rye and 50% first clear or high-gluten flour, barley malt syrup, and beer for half the liquid. The recipe calls for 2:1 white/medium rye to approximate German 997 rye flour. I did not have any white rye flour but used all medium rye (KA brand) and increased the hydration from 60% to 65%. Vital wheat gluten was used to boost KA bread flour to 14% gluten; beer was Destihl Weissenheimer hefeweizen.
My liquid preferment became active and bubbly yesterday. The taste turned from sweet to pleasantly acidic. Early in the morning I made a preferment, which probably will be ready in 12 hours or so
I received The Bread Baker's Apprentice as a gift this year, which I hadn't baked from yet. I also have a bag of Central Milling's Old World Bread Flour I got this Fall, which is my favorite bread flour I've tried so far, but due to my fondness for whole grain home milling, I haven't been using it. I put them together to make Reinhart's simple Pizza Napoletana recipe and to get some practice with instant yeast.
574 g flour
12.5 salt
3 g yeast
25 g olive oil
411 g water
Dough:
Bread flour, 800g
Mashed potatoes (they had some dill in them) 200g
Water, 520g
Diastatic malt, 10g
Salt, 12 g or to taste
Olive oil, two splashes
Toppings:
1. Grape tomatoes, cut in half, oregano
2. Mashed potatoes, scooped with a teaspoon, spicy vegan sausage, herbs (dried chive blossoms and thyme)
I also used emulsion of water, olive oil and salt on both focaccias
