Wanted: 100% Rye Recipe
Hi all
I know this question has been asked many times, but can someone propose a simple 100% rye recipe?
I trade twice weekly at a farmers market and currently bake a 40% rye but have had plenty of requests for a 100% rye. Any suggestions? I would prefer a sourdough rye formula but willing to try a fresh yeast (commercial) version if available. I would prefer to bake the loaf in pans to keep the shape but will also consider a free form loaf, provided it doesn't spread flat before the bake, as is wont with rye dough. I bake in a flat deck electric oven (my main bread oven) but also bake in my fan assisted convection oven. I mix in a commercial spiral mixer and use a prover cabinet to ferment dough at correct temps.
Need a simple recipe that doesn't require a gazillion (that's millions of millions of millions!) of complicated steps. I currently use Hamelmans recipe for all my sourdough bread as well as his baguette recipe, which goes down a hit here in Johannesburg South Africa.
Salut
Paul
My daughter loves bread but has learned that she is allergic to wheat (not gluten). She makes this bread seveal times/month and has no problem with it. It's a fairly easy recipe that works every time for us!
Forget everything you know about making bread. This loaf is like mixing drywall compound. Mix. Mix in salt. Fold once, then pan. It goes into the oven an hour before it reaches maximum expansion. Best if you let the loaf sit for 24-48 hours before you cut into it.
I had a lot of help on this recipe from MiniOven (Thanks Mini!)
Ingredients
420 g Water
120 g Sourdough Starter (a rye based starter is best, but a white starter also works)
500 g White Rye Flour
2 Tbsp Bread Spice (optional)
10 g Salt
Procedure
1. In a large bowl mix together the starter and the water. Add the flour and bread spice and mix. The mixture will be much like Plaster of Paris or drywall compound. It will NOT come together like most loaves!! Cover the bowl with plastic and let sit for 1 hour at room temperature.
2. After 1 hour, add the salt to the dough and mix in using WET hands. The dough is VERY sticky, so make sure to use water on your hands to keep them from sticking too much, and don't be afraid to re-wet your hands if needed. Again cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature for another 3 hours.
3. Prepare a loaf pan by coating with shortening. (A pullman pan with tall sides works best as it helps support the loaf and keeps the bread "tall".)
4. Somewhere between 4 and 4 1/2 hours after starting the dough remove the dough from the bowl (again using wet hands) and do your best to "fold" the dough once or twice. Roughly shape the dough into a loaf (in your hands) and place the dough into the prepared loaf pan. Using a wet hand, smooth the top of the dough. Cover the loaf with plastic (a shower cap works great) and allow to rise at room temperature for another 5-6 hours. Make sure the plastic will NOT TOUCH the risen dough. At the end of the rise the dough should actually be 1/2" to 1" above the rim of the pan.
5. After a total of 9-10 hours since starting the loaf, place the loaf into a cold oven (not on a stone). Heat the oven to 425'F and bake the bread for 25 minutes, then lower the temperature to 400'F and bake for another 25 minutes or until the internal temperature of the loaf is 190-200'F. (Adding steam to the oven once it reaches temperature is probably a good thing. (probably!))
6. Remove the loaf from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan onto a cooling rack. Allow the bread to sit for at least 24 hours before cutting into it (48 hours is better).
Tips
- Based on experiments in my kitchen with sourdough starter and white rye flour in these ratios (1/3.5/4.16) it will take about 11 hours from starting the bread to maximal expansion of the dough. You want to put the loaf in the oven about 1 hour BEFORE you reach maximal expansion, so you want to get it in the oven 9-10 hours after you start mixing the dough. (Starter/Water/Flour)
- You adjust the flavor of this loaf with the amount of bread spice you add. Without any bread spice this is a VERY mild rye bread.
- If you're using yeast instead of sourdough starter, the timing will be completely different. Combine all but the salt and let it stand 1 hour just as above. Then add the salt and let it rise about 2 hours. Move it into a greased bread pan and let it rise until it's just at the top, about another 2 hours. Then bake as above.
Hi thanks for all the dtl. Excuse the ignorance, but what is Bread Spice??
Another name for this?
Tks
Paul
generally bread spice is an unholy mixture of caraway, coriander, fennel and anise seeds. I really de-spise it because it covers completely the taste of fermented rye. My advice is to try first without it, then add it if you find the taste flat (very strange for a rye bread!).
With bread spice you'll be eating spice bread, without spices it will be rye bread:)
No, I'll think skip the spice mix. I know my customers will appreciate the true rye without the spice injection.
Most TFLers generally find the taste of medium rye much better than white rye. I like white rye, but it has to ferment a lot to get tasty because it lacks the tang of the bran.
Actually Mini for her favorite rye used an unusual rye flour with 1.15% ash content, that is in between white rye (0.8-0.9%) and medium rye (1.3-1.4). Maybe a blend of the two would give the best result.
had very nice 100% rye recipes on their blogs and anada (Andy) is the rye king around here too. Varda's was a super chocolate colored one and just beautiful. Just search their blogs or seach under 100% rye,.
Glad your baking goes well.
Currently I am making this
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkcYHhPxccKtdE9vUWN6RUxEMjY2NlRmN1E0M1dRWkE
every week. Export the spreadsheet - it will keep the formulas.
If you are comfortable with Hamelman's 40% you shouldn't have any trouble with this.
Here are some more possibilities:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25940/hussian-and-german-100-ryes-4-recipes
Another blog (by Shiao Ping) is good of great remarks,
look especially at the 1939 Russian Rye.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15577/pure-sourdough-rye-year-1939
Hi Juergen
Thks for the spreadsheet but it seems inactive. Tried entering values but nothing. Any suggestions?
Rgds
Paul
Hi Paul,
I made a new version of the spreadsheet, where the key parameters are editable online
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkcYHhPxccKtdHc3ZjdYWFV2R3hjQU9YaGhFXzRIUFE
Of course, someone might put in funny amounts ... (I added hints about the reasonable ranges)
To gain access to the formulas on the original spreadsheet you need to download itas Excel, then you can manipulate it as you wish:
Happy Baking,
Juergen
PS. Have a look at Hanseata's blog - the is the virtuoso of bread spices
Hi
Have tried again and now working OK! Thanks a lot.
Paukl
I use all rye meal, no chops and it comes out fine. Very popular with the surprisingly large populaion of folks originally from northern Europe at the markets we sell at.
100% rye is a great addition for any market baker as you can bake it a day ahead of time so that the crumb is set when you sell it.
his 100% very fine looking rye today too here :
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/29685/sprouted-vollkornbrot-seeds-and-fresh-milled-flour
To all who have posted
Thanks ever so much. Will comb through all the suggestions and report back with pics and a taste report as soon as I get down to a few trials.
Paul
Try Mini oven, she has a very simple calculation to do it : x gr. of rye sourdough - x multiply by 3.50 =gr. water - x multiply by 4.16 = gr. rye flour
She is from Austria and her favorite baking is Rye. you will fin her recipe under " my favourite 100% rye bread" I'm using her method already one year and it is really fine. I add Molasses and Malt extract as well as seeds ( sunflowers or Caraway seeds for the demand of my customers).
Good luck, B.
Am doing this right now. Will try out during the week! :)
OK. Have now tested the formula for Russian 100% Rye, Andy's Village Bakery version. Here is the result.
Varied degrees of success.
1. The sourdough ferment worked perfectly. Good vigorous rise at 24C for 14 hours.
2. Then mixed the ferment into a paste and here things seemed to go dead. Nothing, no rise. It was like working with pottery clay.
3. I waited 2 hrs (at 18C) for a 25% rise, as well as time for small bubbles to appear. Absolutely dormant. Waited another hour - nothing.
Baked in 2 pans with steam in a twin-fan assisted convection oven for 10 min. Baked for the full 40 mins. No rise during the bake. Left to rest for 24hrs.
The breads were so tiny, what we would call mini-loaves here in South Africa. Thickness only 2 in // 5cm. Are my pans too large? 9in x 5in x 2.5 in. // 23 x 12 x 6 cm. How do I get more volume?
Then the crust. Very tough and hard. Was this because of too much steam?
Surprisingly, the crumb was very tasty and the flavour very agreeable.
But oh so small. Here are some pics:
Here is the pan with the smallish loaf.
The loaf is small in comparison with the hand
The crumb is OK?
Here is a measure of the bread.
Any suggestions, proposals, from all out there, greatly appreciated.
Paul
Hi Paul,
First of all - If you like the taste - gret! The rest can be sorted out.
1. Bulk rise: 18C is very cold. Rye likes it warm. Keep it at 24C, or even warmer. I got my best results at 28C. I don't get much oven spring (maybe 10 %).
2. Crumb: doesn't look bad at all - despite probably being underproofed. These breads are quite dense.
3. Crust: is thin and hard after the bake, but softens. This bread is best left for 24 hours (I keep it in a plastic box or wax paper) . Shape your bread with very wet hands, this way you get a nice smooth crust.
4. Loaf tins: Here in England a lot of things seem tiny - and my customers like smallish breads (at least when it comes to rye). I bake 500g loaves, using 550g of paste in tins of 15 X 9 X 7 cm. The paste fills these tins to about 2/3, and after the bulk rise the tins are evenly full. 15 X 9 X 7 = 945 cubic cm; your tin is 23 X 12 X 6 = 1656 cubic cm. That should be just right for 800g to 1000g. How much paste did you use?
4. Bake: At what temperatures? I usualluy start as hot as it can get, with steam, for 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 210C and bake without steam for another 20 minutes. Some German bakers use 2 ovens for this kind of bread: First 5 minutes at 260C with steam, and then 25 minutes in a 210C oven.
Best Wishes,
Jürgen
Thanks Jurgen
I am sure with tweeking the results, I will get this right. I will test again this weekend and post the results.
Interesting comment about how rye prefers warm environment considering the colder climates in Europe are renowned for their ryes! Russia, Germany, the Nordic countries (i,e, Sweden.)
Regards
Paul
Paul,
I was wondering about that as well ...
I suppose in a bakery there is always a warm spot. And many farmhouses in Europe had these fantastic ovens with little chambers, where you could keep things warm ...
http://www.antike-kacheloefen.de/oefen/stubenoefen/landleben03.html
I started a Russian Rye this morning and will take some pictures along the way.
Cheers,
Juergen
here:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/29773/making-russian-rye-photos
Happy Baking,
Juergen
everything that I noticed. I thought a little more dough in the pan or smaller pans will solve the "looks" problem. Rye needs a few degrees warmer to stretch. The cooler country means the baker can keep cooler for longer bakes... maybe. I think it has to do more with where the rye grows.
Now that you have some already baked rye, you might want to crumble and soak some of it adding to the (1st choice) fermenting sour or (2nd choice) into the dough. It is a flavour booster! To put your loaf a step up and increase volume. :)
Have you noticed the loaf darkening from yesterday?
Much appreciated. By crumbling and soaking I assume you mean adding to the fermenting sour at the start of the 14 hour / 24 C period?
Also, my bakery is air conditioned with heating to 30C option, so I will definitely crank up the heat during the final ferment stage after placing the shaped dough in the pans. It is now winter in Joahnnesburg and during the day our average temperature is 15 - 19 C.
Regards
Paul.
It can serve to elaborate the sour, or be combined with flour and water. On a home scale, I crumb a few slices in a food processor before adding. Altus can also be soaked and squeezed, saving the water for the dough or elaboration a good stiff mixing will break up soaked slices of altus on a large scale. I have some walnut rye here that I've cut & dried for traveling. It's going into the first loaf at my destination. It won't be long before you get requests for walnut rye. Toast the walnuts first.
Notice the shape of the rye dough in the form will help with the final shape and good looks of the loaf. When placing in the pan, leave the dough some room to expand sideways and into the corners before rising up. Clearly seen in Juergen's photos. I haven't got into too many surface textures with this goop but I have rolled it into raw seeds, crumbs, rolled grain (rye flakes -very typical "sign"of a 100% rye loaf) and nuts (separately or combined) to give the outside of the loaf a pleasing roasted mantle.
Wouldn't know about making the bakery a toasty 30°C. Your work force might quit on you or start smearing the coconut oil on themselves and change into volleyball bikinis while converting a large mixer vat into a dip pool. Tossing the shaped loaves over a net might be the first hint of trouble. :) Proofing chamber? I tend to park my rising loaves on a shelf over a radiator in winter. I'm planning on heading into winter myself. Busy packing up for southern Chile, the city of Los Angeles. I'm taking my heavenly mixture of bread spices and SD with me. I'm hoping for a good source of rye flour and baking with a gas oven. Interesting flour options and variety await.
Mini