How Do You Make a Dark Rye Dark

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louiscohen on 18 Apr 2025 at 15:30

Here are photos of the Jewish Bakery Pumpernickel from "The Rye Baker"

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vbqLx3xyzMWCr3R7A   I used coffee (Costco Decaf from Starbucks) for nearly all the water, but the bread was not much darker than earlier attempts like this one: https://photos.app.goo.gl/RpfGk36hgLxV83As5

 

Here's the formula: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yMGc9gUnH8Cmn6I49EquwoQhwt_ikHT6/view?usp=drive_link

 

The book recommends caramel coloring, and has instructions for making your own, but I was hoping to get the color without using sugar.   Has anybody gotten a nice dark color using cocoa powder?  Molasses is also common but I would like to avoid the sugar if possible.  OTOH, if you aren't worried about the sugar, molasses adds a great flavor note.

 

The traditional way of baking a dark rye was a long (12-24 hrs) bake in a receding oven, but that's not practical for me,  

 

Thanks

I ferment the rye preferment at warm room temperatures, never at 20 degrees Celsius  as prescribed in the Rye Baker book, but closer to 27-30C, until it becomes clearly reddish in color (in case of whole rye or dark rye flour) or with clear orange hue ( in case of medium rye flour)and tastes way more acidic that I like. Typically, overnight, for about 12 hours. In liquid form, the preferment rises, violently bubbles, falls, becomes still, flat and no longer foaming.

 After that, the bread dough ferments only for 30 min to an hour, gets shaped, rises, and bakes. Freshly baked, still warm rye for breakfast is great.

To bake in the afternoon, or evening, fresh rye bread for dinner, I mix preferment early in the morning, and let it ferment at higher temperatures 

NB all of the above works only for darker colored rye grains, those with green, brown, or blue bran. White rye kernels and light yellow rye kernels, when milled and fermented behave differently. They never bake into the darkest brown crumb as in pumpernickel and other European dark rye breads.  

I have never used coffee, dark cocoa, melted chocolate, dark caramel, black honey, beetroot juice, or any other colorants in dark pure rye breads. They do color the bread, it's crumb and crust, but the look is not like real rye, looks artificial. And the flavor of bread gets altered as well (which is what baker seeks sometimes, of course.

From the looks of your bread, the flours you use need a little  diastatic rye malt, or straight alpha amylase added to them.

I have used natural cocoa in a rye bread recipe (https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/russian-black-bread-recipe). The color wasn't as dark as it would have been with the black cocoa, but it was still pretty dark. I imagine dutch cocoa would be intermediate in color. 

I'll second @Precaud's suggestion of the fermented rye malt—great flavor and color, and its use is authentic in some Russian and Baltic rye breads. Crystal rye malt will produce a lighter brown color and a different flavor. Chocolate rye malt is nearly black and will give a dark color; I've used it Ginsberg's Pumpkinseed Rye.

You could also try a dark barley malt or even roasted barley if you'd like to experiment. Except for the fermented rye malt, these malts and grains are available at well-stocked homebrewing shops.

First,  American "Jewish Bakery Pumpernickel" and traditional German pumpernickel are two different breads. I haven't baked it in a while, but I used to bake a Jewish-style pumpernickel colored with purchased caramel powder and it was exactly like the bread from the Jewish bakery I had as a kid.

The caramel powder doesn't just color the bread. It adds a certain, slightly bitter flavor without which the bread doesn't taste right (to me).

FYI, here's a link to my recipe:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13350/pumpernickel-bread-george-greenstein039s-quotsecrets-jewish-bakerquot

Happy baking!

David

One other factor that applies to all rye bread: Substituting whole grain rye for white rye in recipes that call for the latter will make the crumb color darker, as well as making the bread more flavorful.

David

A bread like Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel, for instance, develops its dark color during the very long low-temperature bake without any overt use of colorants.  You'll find multiple examples of this excellent bread here on TFL.  I suggest you give it a try.

Paul