Jake's first sour dough rye bread (wish me luck=:-)
FYI, I bought the culture I'm using for this bread from the fine folks at Breadtopia. The starter was delivered (looked like a small pancake) in a slim plastic bag. I revived it using two Tbs each of water and flour, all placed in a small bowl mixed together. The starter readily took off, I've fed it twice after this initial feeding using 1/3 C flour and 1/4C water. I may have jumped the gun a little using a fresh yeast culture as it wasn't built up a lot but I have confidence it will do just fine. BTW, no one here even knows me...guess you could say I'm the FNG or, fun new guy=:-) Not that you're interested but 30+ years ago I was employed as a union baker (bread buns rolls). Did every job in that bake shop as I was a vacation relief man at one point. We had about a dozen different breads we baked but this type of baking I was doing I would call production baking. It was large scale commercial baking. Not quite Wonder Bread but close. Anyways, in regards to the yeast I used for this bread, I tried my hand at getting a culture started on my own using only flour and water and I was not successful, hence I bought a small starter and boy am I glad I did. Back in the mid to the late 80's I home brewed beer, brewed all grain and had a lot of fun with it. FWIW I attended the 89' American Homebrewers Assoc. annual get together held that year in Kentucky at the Oldenburg Brewery. I was quite used to buying lab cultured yeat to brew beer so purchasing a starter to get an authentic sour dough rye bread seemed like the right thing to do. Here's a pic of my culture after 36 hours?
Looks like it's rolling here, yes? Back when I worked in the bread bakery we bought commercial yeast (I think Fleischmans) in 20? lb bags. the yeast was in a caked/brick form. Needless to say I value a quality yeast starter whether I'm brewing beer or baking bread. Speaking of bread, here's a pic of my dough just before placing this bowl in a kitchen sized trash bag so it can proof until later today, in the afternoon (I'm shooting for 12-14 hours proofing). If I forgot to mention, I'm using Breadtopia's sour dough rye recipe
If the dough looks small that's because I mixed it in this rather huge bowl. If it looks a tad too wet, that's because I mixed in extra water...I felt it was too dry following the recipe and may have used a bit too much water. That's all for now, wish me luck=:-)
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
good luck!
Thanks Gabe! FYI, the dough ended up too wet to handle (stretch and fold) so I scooped it off my work board (kitchen counter top) back into the bowl I used for proofing and began adding small bits of flour incorporating into the dough with a dough wisk. Mental note to self: ...follow the recipe next time Jake=:-)...what I thought was too dry of a dough beginning proofing would have been fine but all is not lost, adding flour to get the dough dry enough to manage is easy and the only drawback IMO is now there will be more flour for the yeast to eat during the following stages of proofing. Live and learn. I took some more pics and will post later. Right now the dough is rising one last final time before it goes into the oven
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
here's the mix after proofing 13 hours
Although I got a good rise out of it, it was too wet so I mixed more flour into it using a dough wisk. here's the dough on the counter after flattening and flouring it up a bit so I could work with it
then shaped into an oval form
and covered it with a new clean plastic kitchen trash bag so it could rise another 20 minutes or so w/o drying the skin
after proofing, the dough went into this cloth lined proofing basket I purchased at Breadtopia when I had them send the sour dough yeast culture. As per their (Breadtopia) instructions, I made sure the seam at the bottom of the dough was at the top of the basket so this seam would be on the bottom when the proofed loaf went into the oven (flipping it over 180 degrees at that time), but first, I proofed the dough one more time, inside a bag for 1.5 hours, then it went into the oven
I baked the loaf inside of this clay oven baker also purchased through Breadtopia
as per their recipe, 475 degrees fahrenheit for 30 minutes enclosed in the clay baker (which was preheated for 30 minutes in the oven), & top off, back in the oven for 10 more minutes at 450, to carmelize the crust. FWIW, when I set the proofed dough into clay bake pot before putting it into the oven, I suddenly remembered that I wanted to slash the top of the loaf with a razor blade so as to give the crust some contrast, yet I neglected to set out a double edge razor blade for this specific task. I had just finished shaving with one of my straight razors and had it in my pocket so I used it to make the dough cuts. the razor seen in this pic-
this is where the loaf sits now, on a make shift cooling rack (toaster oven rack)
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.