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Ginsberg "The Rye Baker" errata?

Katja's picture
Katja

Ginsberg "The Rye Baker" errata?

I'm trying to find out if there is an errata sheet anywhere for Stanley Ginsberg's "The Rye Baker". The specific item that I'm wondering about is in the Buttery Crispbread recipe on page 193 of my copy: the quantities for instant yeast seem inconsistent:

Grams: 16

Ounces: 0.55

Volume: 1 1/4 tsp

When I weigh 1 1/4 tsp of instant yeast, I get about 4 grams, which is in line with the common 1 pkt yeast = 2.5 tsp = 7 grams.

 

OldWoodenSpoon's picture
OldWoodenSpoon

Stan has two web sites:  New York Bakers and The Rye Baker.  If there is an errata sheet for the book it will be there I'm sure.  You could also email him directly through either site, or send him a private message here on TFL.

OldWoodenSpoon

 

Note:  I have no affiliation or relationship with either of these sites or Stan Ginsberg, beyond being a long time customer.

Katja's picture
Katja

Thanks! 

I've had no luck using the contact form on The Rye Baker site. I did find an errata sheet for "Inside the Jewish Bakery" at https://www.stanleyginsbergbooks.com/ITJB/files/IJB_Errata.pdf, but nothing analogous for "The Rye Baker". I'll try a PM.

clazar123's picture
clazar123

A lot of us have purchased his books so let us know what you find out. He is usually pretty responsive but I know he is also very busy.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I just yesterday down loaded the breads and the rolls sections of "Inside the Jewish Bakery" Someday I will treat myself to the complete hard copy. 

 

The Unabaker's picture
The Unabaker

I've been reviewing this book for an upcoming article in my blog "the unabaker speaks". Using an analytical tool i developed, I've discovered routine errors in formulae. Some really inexplicable. Most of these are in his Baker's Percentages tables that function as a total formula for the recipe, but some odd stuff in his stage formulae as well. You have to read the entire text well, and also have an understanding of normal Baker's percentages used for stuff like yeast and salt. Whoever did the proofreading and copy editing missed a lot of errors. Otherwise it's a stellar book full of great information. I learned by reading it. 

 

The Unabaker's picture
The Unabaker

You should use the 16g he calls for. If one packet is 7 grams use 2.3 packets. If you notice the formula uses al of coarse meal and some seeds. It will take the 16g yeast to lift it. It's better to get a gram scale and forget using spoons for measuring baking bread. 

If you read his formula, notice the error in the final dough formula? It has the wrong total for the sponge. But in this case his total formula corrected it. Not s significant error that affects the outcome, just bothersome that the book is so full of these. Making using his reported Baker's Percentages very unreliable. 

Katja's picture
Katja

I'll give it a try with the greater amount of yeast. I do use weights for all my bread baking - with that big a discrepancy, it was just a question of which measurement was correct. I have also noticed that there are quite a few errors in conversion/arithmetic through out the book.

The Unabaker's picture
The Unabaker

I've tried both sites to contact him, but with zero response. I think the rye baker site hasn't been tended since the PR push for the book concluded, and the other, who knows why since it's his business...

But I'll bet if you send interest in being on his rye bread tour of Europe, there'd be a reply. :) 

Katja's picture
Katja

Haha, I did, actually - the Bavaria/Austrian Alps tour interests me greatly. But I use a wheelchair, and he did respond but only to tell me that neither tour is (or could become?) wheelchair accessible.

The Unabaker's picture
The Unabaker

Money always talks, but am sorry to hear you couldn't be accommodated. I'm not good for tour groups, so I did the tour by reading his book. It's a marvelous and obviously passionate bit of exploration he did. I'm always inspired by dedicated pursuit, and I learned a lot from his experience. 

smallfarm's picture
smallfarm

I've baked about ⅓ of the recipes in The Rye Baker and found several errors. I just amend as I go.

Steve E's picture
Steve E

Would any of you be interested in helping to compile a list of corrections here on TFL? I just bought the book (which I love) and have already uncovered a few obvious errors.

Katja's picture
Katja

I could be persuaded. Are you thinking of a divide and conquer strategy (we each take a chapter), or just as we go along?

Part of the problem will be that the right answer for some errors will be obvious, but others (like the one that prompted me to start this discussion) won't be. 

Steve E's picture
Steve E

I wasn't thinking of assigning anything. Rather, I was proposing to provide a single place where we can collect mistakes as we find them, and then correct them. It could be here or a Google doc or something else. Any bright ideas out there?

Pownal baker's picture
Pownal baker

I also adore the book and also wonder occasionally about mistakes. Here's one for the list: On p. 241, the final dough for the Franconia Crusty Boule asks for 400g of medium rye flour, but the percentages on the next pages, p. 242, lists 400g of dark rye flour. I'm not sure which is right. 

flourdustedhazzn's picture
flourdustedhazzn

I tried making his sauerkraut bread recipe (page 212) and the water was off -- the dough came out as a batter. I looked over the percentages at the end, and sure enough, the water in the final table is less by 60g (about a quarter cup) than what's in the recipe. I think he forgot to account for the water in the soaker.

Katja's picture
Katja

Thanks for this. I thought I had made this bread, but have no notes. I think what I actually made was the Dithmarscher cabbage bread (p 125). No notes on that recipe either, but I remember it working out fine, and having a nice taste.

DougWeller's picture
DougWeller

That's what the recipe for Yogurt rye/Chelb Misezany says should happen - it didn't. I've made the bread but not cut it yet so I don't know what it's like. (I should have read that before I started making it, but I don't know what I would have done).

Doug

mariana's picture
mariana

Hi Dough, 

this slurry is made with a small portion of total flour. In the recipe, Stan says, "make a well in the center of flour, pour in the yeast water and stir slightly to form a slurry (with a small portion of flour around the water in that well)". 

You can make it separately, it's just in the introduction to the book Stan explains that he prefers to do it this way in order to not wash additional bowls and glasses. 

This is how it looks when you make it separately: yeasty flour slurry separates into liquid portion with some flour at the bottom and a very foamy part on top. 

If you make it inside the well in the flour that sits in your mixer bowl, then it would expand as it foams like that (the majority of dry flour sits underneath that slurry)

DougWeller's picture
DougWeller

Thanks for the details and photos. Shame the recipe itself says clearly combine the flours etc in the mixer and pour in the yeast water and stir slightly to make a slurry. I haven't found yet where he discusses this in the introduction.  Still can't find the errata sheet, which makes me nervous about using the recipes. And I bought the hardback after the Kindle version!

mariana's picture
mariana

I agree, Doug, it is always risky to bake from any book with or without errata alike. To err is human (and to forgive is divine), there are always some typos or mistakes creeping in and without experience it is difficult to judge because nothing even looks suspicious.

Also, writers assume things, but readers also assume things. When I started reading baking books I had no idea that bakers use the same words as the rest of us but they mean something else, normal words mean different things to bakers, in their professional language. 

Our only hope is to always look online if someone already tried the recipe and posted their results online with the feedback. Or forums like this one, where one can ask : guys I'm about to bake using such and such recipe from such and such book, what should I pay attention to? And more experienced bakers will help and maybe even someone will bake it for you, before you, to show you the proper way to avoid misunderstanding. 

I also own a hard copy of the Rye Baker and I use its e-book version that I borrowed from our Toronto Public library to consult it online, to take snapshots of certain paragraphs for discussion, etc. 

When Stan describes how to make a slurry with ALL flour already sitting in the bowl of the mixer, he refers to the Well Method of making it. It is illustrated here, except that here the flour is sitting on the bench, not in a bowl. But the essence is the same. Make a well in the center of your flour, deep enough to show the bare bottom of the bowl, pour water, yeast into it, and gradually make a slurry, drawing the flour from the inside walls of the well. Then stop. Wait until the slurry is foaming and then continue: draw the remaining flour into the slurry, kneading, mixing and developing your dough until smooth and shiny. 

Stan discusses it in the 3.Mixing section of the book (Chapter called "Nine Steps to Great Rye Bread"), at the very end, where he says that he likes to make his sponges (fermented slurries) directly in the mixing bowl (inside the well) and then incorporating the remaining dry flour around it (and the remaining wet ingredients, such as yogurt)l:

DougWeller's picture
DougWeller

Thanks, that's very useful. I like his description of the well method. And doing it on the work bench is fascinating. I guess I could, when I try it again, make the well but not try to get all of the flour incorporated into the yeast water, as I know that won't work - I can just add mix enough in from the inside walls to make the slurry, put it in my proofer overnight, and finish in the morning.

Doug

alcophile's picture
alcophile

Hi Doug,

What was your Chleb Mieszany like? I made this bread twice, following as close to the recipe as possible, and found it to be a moist but dense loaf. (see link below)

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/67949/ Help with Recipe from The Rye Baker

My request for advice prompted fellow Fresh Loaf members to try the recipe and they had better luck with a higher hydration dough, giving a much more open crumb. I haven’t revisited the recipe yet and instead tried the Dakota Norwegian Rye and that recipe worked well.

alcophile's picture
alcophile

My question for The Rye Baker errata is about the Provençal Rye (Pain de Seigle Sisteron). The stage formulae do not agree with the final Baker’s Percentages table:

  • Sponge uses 100 g rye sour culture; table says 20 g
  • Total water in the stages is 450 g; table says 490 g
  • Total AP flour in stages is 375 g; table says 315 

Which values should be followed? The discrepancy in the sour culture seems to be the most significant. I’m a newbie, so I don’t what to try the recipe and get stuck with an intractable dough.

Thanks!

mariana's picture
mariana

Please, follow the first column in grams for sponge and final dough. It will give you exactly one 1.1kg (2.5lb) loaf as stated in the table on p 119. 

Rye% is a bit higher than 54% though (60% rye), unless he uses quite a bit of rye flour for dusting the surface as he shapes his loaf. Then it is even higher % rye. 

This bread formula has

275g APF (150 in sponge and 125 in dough)

420g Rye flour or rye meal, or mix (50 in rye sour, 370 in dough)

500g water (50 in rye sour stage, 150 in sponge, 300 in dough)

10g salt

----------

1205g + some flour for dusting, most likely, medium rye flour (about 50-100g). 

After baking and cooling off this bread t would lose about 10% weight with vapor, resulting in 1.1kg loaf. 

======

His baker's percentages table is all off, it is better to skip that part altogether. It makes no sense at all, as if it was for a different bread. Every line, column, and cell is wrong, except for grams of salt and total formula weight 😁. 

======

Logically, his method doesn't make sense. I don't understand why he preferments APF in the sponge together with rye flour from rye sour. However, I haven't baked that loaf or tasted it in France, Googling doesn't help either, modern Sisteron bakeries don't bake something like that, so I don't know how it is supposed to look and taste.

The Breads of France and how to bake them in your own kitchen by  Bernard Clayton, Jr. gives us a different method from the 1960s: French starter (stiff, white flour, actually a piece of white sourdough left from baking French bread) and all rye flour in bread dough.

Proportions are the same, 60% rye, so I think Stanley adapted Clayton's recipe to make it work with rye sour and without yeast, in two steps instead of one, since we don't really have a piece of white flour sourdough available at any moment as in French bakery and Stanley's book doesn't teach us how to make one. 

alcophile's picture
alcophile

Mariana,

Thank you again for your advice on rye breads. I am easing into more complicated rye breads now that I have a rye sour culture. I do have a general question about the sourness of breads made with a rye sour. Is it your experience that a greater percentage of sour culture produces more or less sourness in the bread?

Thanks!

mariana's picture
mariana

Hi,

I am the wrong person to ask that question, because I don't know. I don't deliberately change % of sour culture, I just follow the recipe and see what gives. Then I discover what bread would result from such and such recipe.  

Your question is more along the lines that there are bread recipes (in the Rye Baker book or in books) that have small amounts and large amounts of rye culture in them. Can you predict which breads would be sour just from reading the recipe? No. All cultures are different and sourness depends on the specific culture that you have. And all breads are different. Some are very sour with 3% culture and some are extremely mild with 50% of the same culture and more. 

Another type of question is 'how can I make my bread more or less sour?', 'can I do it by changing % of sour culture while keeping everything else in the recipe the same?' I don't know a general answer to that question, because it has to do with experimentation more than with designing bread on paper. You would have to bake it and see what gives.