Poolish Rye & Whole Wheat Bread - Barry's Artisan Bread
A week ago, I bought my first rye and whole wheat flour, they were imported from Germany. I could not understand a word on the description, but I was determined to try my hand on these flour. Here I am trying my first rye and whole wheat bread. Honestly, I have no idea what it is suppose to look like or taste like, as I'm not a fan of rye bread usually, I'm a white loaf freak. Surprisingly, this recipe is easy, and the taste is really good. I still need to work on my shaping and proofing timing though.
It;s a wet dough to work with, I'm now aching all over from the kneading, 3 different types of kneading just to get dough ready. Wish I have a machine to help me with. I'm still waiting for my birthday present...
The taste is pretty good though, seems like the poolish had helped with this outcome. Is it suppose to look like that? Unfortunately, Barry's artisan did have any pictures of the dough he made, and I found many rye and whole wheat that are more dense. Am I getting this right?
Jenny
Recipe Here:
Jenny's Blog on Poolish Rye and Whole Wheat Bread
Comments
idea what it looks like. Yours look a bit light colored, but if it tastes good, who cares, grin...
Anna, you are right. The colour appeared lighter than most that I've seen. I guess its because this recipe didn't call for molasses which I found in most recipes for rye bread. Does molasses ehance the taste?
When I bake my breads covered, their crust tends to be quite a bit lighter than if I uncover them for the last 10 to 20 minutes which gives the crust time to nicely brown.
I'll be glad to help (transplated German here)
Anna - thanks for the offer. At least now I know who to go to for help on German. In fact, I find that the German flour seems lighter than those American flour that I bought...is that observation correct?
Jenny, actually kneading rye is extremely simple: roll the dough in your wet hands and keep it extremely soft: it just has to keep together.
Look at this:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15736/mini039s-favorite-rye-ratio
Color and taste don't necessarily require molasses: hot soakers gives a marvellous sweet taste and darkens the bread.
It starts out in oz. for the poolish, then changes to grams and includes an addition of 2 oz of white flour. Very strange.
As a beginner with rye, I would suggest a recipe that doesn't go 50/50 with rye. Go more rye or less rye to get good results. I call the 50% rye "the gray zone" and it can be more difficult to get a good result. You seem to have come out with the same results as the recipe you followed so you did very well. I might let it brown more in the oven and use a smaller loaf pan.
How long did you knead? My guess for this bread would be about 8 minutes after the rest period to develop the wheat.
Mini
Hi Mini - I'm not very good with actual metrics. Too use to cooking with estimation, which I know is a very very bad habit in baking bread. I really need to get consistency on my measurement.
For my kneading, I think I spent more than 8 mins, it's all by hand. Because it is a wet dough, I had to put in a lot more effort and longer to get it together. In fact, my husband was just commenting that he seems to be tasting flour, I wonder if I had kneaded enough.
For the browning, I wonder if the temperature that I used is little low. Followed the instructions. I had another try to my other dough which is round in shape, at 10 degrees higher, seems to come out a little darker than this one. Will post out the picture on this later this week.
By the way - love your 100% rye bread...looks so good.
Anna/Mini - I made German Sourdough last sunday, meant to post this out but only found time today to do so.
For this one, it seems like the baking went well, color is darker. The crust turns out nicer too. But I think I should have waited longer before I put into bake, it splits at the bottom.
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