July 25, 2009 - 9:54am
Rye sourdough starter: a question
I'm about ready to tackle rye breads made with a sourdough starter, but I have a question.
I've been reading Hamelman's Bread, and he poses two ways to make a rye sourdough starter: one begins with an established starter--presumedly, all white flour; the second way begins by making a rye sourdough starter from scratch. I have an all white sourdough starter I'm happy with, but somehow it seems I might be cheating myself converting, rather than creating a rye starter. Please offer your facts, opinions and comments.
Thanks beforehand,
David G
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I just asked Eric about this. He said to do a couple of feeding of your regular starter (i.e., make a rye starter out of part of it) with rye and then let it sit out on the counter for about 24 hours.
--Pamela
David, you have PR's books don't you? He talks about converting a white to a rye in his whole grain book. But it is really a simple process. You just start feeding your starter with a rye for a while. Then you can convert it back if you want. But why not keep two going for a while!
--Pamela
Remember, I ran a poll. Hamelman's Bread emerged the single book I think I needed to buy. I did. Based on the advice, so far, I think I'll convert a bit of the starter I have. I'm very happy with it.
David G.
How do you store your starter? If you store it in fridge it would take about the same amount of time and flour to wake up and convert the starter and to grow a new one. So in this case I'd say - go with a new starter. If you store it at room temperature it will be much easier to convert.
It took me a couple of weeks to get my first starter going. Or am I not understanding you?
I'm just suggesting taking part of the discard and feeding it rye for a few days.
--Pamela
Three-four days - that's what it always takes me. I assume that for anyone who has done it once growing a new starter won't take longer than that.
Hi David,
I just made Hamelman's 40% rye for the first time recently and loved Loved LOVED it. I've been making it ever since. I have an onion version fermenting right now. Anyway, I was so taken with the whole rye deal that I dried and froze my other starters just to get them out of the way. For my first foray I used 17g of my mixed grain starter to end up with 680g of rye starter. Seems a pretty miniscule bit of non-rye to start with, but I suppose purists could squawk about different bacteria and/or yeasts and I may get to a purer experiment in time. I personally don't get a lot of the really subtle differences that some observe - could be my less than controlled kitchen area. Anyway, the point is, I used my regular starter to get going and it worked great and the flavour is fantastic. I've moved over to maintaining that culture exclusively. I only bake with wild yeast (except for Danish :-) and when I'm doing a white bread I go the opposite way, I start with a tiny bit of the rye starter and elaborate it out to a white starter. Or, if the bread calls for 10% rye, which I often like in my white breads, I include that 10% rye flour in the form of starter.
:-Paul
As I said above, based on your consensus, I used my established starter, and converted a small portiion to enough rye starter for this bake. Made Hamelman's 40% rye with caraway. Yvonne and I both like it. It's been years since I've had any really good rye bread--NY deli--so I've nothing to compare it to.
Thank you all for the good advice.
David G
It looks perfect to me. Beautiful crumb. Now a good mustard and some pastrami...
:-Paul
I already tried it with swiss cheese, and home-cured ham. Ahh--h-h-h!
D G
Nice loaves, David. Pretty darn good for a 1st try. I have a question on your scoring. Why did you score horizontally rather than vertically?
--Pamela
Pamela,
I got the idea from The Village Baker, p. 201, as a recommended scoring for a Jewish-Style Rye Bread. It seemed to me the athwartships scoring would maximize spring along the bread's long axis, and upwards. Although its only a 40% rye, 68% hydration, the dough is fairly slack, and flattened a little as soon as I transferred it to the peel for loading. I was relying on ovenspring to give me the desired volume. I feel I got it.
David G
Beautiful shaping, scoring and crumb.
The transverse scoring is traditional with Jewish Sour Rye. The French traditionally use a "sausage cut" or "chevron cut." All of these encourage upward expansion during oven spring and a resulting round cross section. The rationale that Suas gives is that rye breads, having less CO2-trapping gluten and don't have the oven spring that wheaten breads do and require those cuts to prevent the loaves from ending up too flat.
David
praise from you is inspiring. I have a couple of question for you.
You can see in the photos there is a coating of white flour covering the loaves, and I don't like it. This is from the couche. I'm reluctant to try to brush it off before scoring and baking, but it's firmly in place after baking. I also think it interferes with browning. I use course brown rice flour in my brotforms,less of it seems to cling to the dough,. and it seems to brush off more easily after baking. However, I've been reluctant to try it on the couche because it's a bit more messy--scatters on the counters when I roll up the couche to put it away. (Although I imagine there is a perpeptual cloud of flour in the kitchen's air since I started this obsessive baking.) Have you any suggestions how I can minimize, or even eliminate the coating of flour I get on all my loaves when I use the couche for proofing?
Also, Ortiz, in The Village Baker, instructs using an egg wash glaze on Jewish-style rye. Is that also traditional? I vaguely recall egg-washed crust on bread we bought from local bakers when I was a child, but I don't recall if it was rye bread.
David G
Hi , David
I proof rye breads either in a brotform or on a baking parchment paper couche.
When I do proof on a linen couche, I generally use a very light dusting of AP flour, which I massage into the fabric. I use a heavier dusting only for very high hydration doughs that are very sticky.
My couche is made from a treated linen that is supposed to be non-stick. I know I paid a premium for this, but it works really well. I can't compare it to "regular" bakers' linen.
The traditional Jewish Sour Rye is brushed with a cornstarch glaze before and after baking. To make it, dissolve 2 T cornstarch in 1/4 cup cold water. Pour this gradually into 1 cup of slowly boiling water, whisking constantly. Cook until it reaches the desired thickness (a very few seconds, generally).
David
Until now, I've only been using parchment paper to bake on, and since buying a smart peel, I've stopped preferring placing the loaves directly on the heated stone. I will try that next time, in lieu of the linen couche. I treat mine, exactly as you do with AP flour, but perhaps I'm being a little more heavy handed than you.
Thanks for the information re the corn starch glaze. I'd heard of it, but have never used it, and didn't know the water/startch ratio nor that it's to be applied before and after baking. I'll try that next time too.
David G.
Yes, thanks, David. I figured you would have the answer to my question and that the transverse scoring was probably traditional.
--Pamela
First try, those are awesome. I've saved this and I don't think I've made it yet. Guess I better get going. Thanks for the inspiration.
Betty