Horst Bandel's Pumpernickel from "Bread"

This is one of those breads I have been very eager to make, and it is finally done. I am posting about this now, even though the 24 hour rest is not done with yet,because the little man is asleep and I am also trying not to forget any aspects of the procedure.

-my SD starter with the rye meal fermented in the oven with pilot light on for about 12 hours and then I stuck it into the fridge for convenience

-I soaked the berries for about  18 hours, then boiled for about 1.5 hours

-I had some frozen old bread and poured hot water over it to soak...I let it stand for around 12 hours, too(can you tell I had intended to bake this earlier than I eventually did?)

-I used hard red whole wheat flour for the high gluten flour

- the day of the bake I mixed together all the ingredients for the final dough but did not add any water. I didn't really do a very good job at pressing out the water from the old bread soaker, either. I was slightly concerned that the unsoaked rye chops would eventually absorb too much water, so I was very generous with my water allowance and decided to err on the wetter side. Meaning,after mixing the dough with my hand held mixer for-let's say 8 minutes- I decided I wasn't going to add any flour, even though I would consider the dough to have been more batter like. NO WAY of actually "shaping" it into a log as it says in the instructions; or I could have shaped it into a log but there would have been no way for me to transfer the log shape to the pan.

-since I still seem to have the darndest time in planning out my baking day, the bread bulk proofed for about 20 minutes, then got stuck in the fridge for about 2.5 hours, then gently scraped the dough into the oiled/floured pans, for a final fermentation time of about 45 minutes. I just went by how high the dough rose in relationship to the pan rims.

-I had read on der-sauerteig.de how pumpernickel in commercial settings is baked in forced steam ovens, which mirrored the sentiment expressed by ehanner( I believe) to bake the pumpernickel like a X-mas pudding in a water bath. So, I stuck the foil wrapped pans into a turkey roaster, on a grill insert, with some boiling water in the bottom.The bake started at about 325 fahrenheit for maybe 1.5 hours, the turned down(to what I thought was 250-turns out it was closer to 275) overnight(about 8 hours) , turned it further down in the morning to about 225, and then for the last 2.5-3 hours I just left the oven on its warm setting (about 140).

I did such a good job about sealing my roaster that hardly any aroma escaped and I was quite worried for a while, but sticking my nose in the oven I could smell the most divine, earthy and very malty pumpernickel smell.

When I took the breads out the top was a deep, dark brown..the sides were lighter in color, but have now darkened since they have been resting. The bread smells phenomenal, seems very juicy(even though the sticking-toothpick-in-the-middle-test came out clean) and I hope the crumb will be as perfect as the outside of the bread seems to be.

So, here are some pictures, crumb shot will follow tomorrow........and I assume that I can keep this bread in the fridge, in a plastic bag, yes?I don't remember anybody at home ever freezing this type of bread...it was just kept in plastic in the fridge. If that's a no-no please tell me!

this is the SD after fermentation

my very wet, finished dough, prior to bulk fermentation

the bread's home for the next 16 hours all nicely wrapped and cozy

one of the just unwrapped loaves...can't wait to try it!

Christina

P.S.: I forgot to mention that I had to split the dough into two pans, since I do not own one pan large enough to hold that amount of dough.