The Fresh Loaf

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Pumpernickel Rye Loaf a la Whole Foods Market

iamsaraiam's picture
iamsaraiam

Pumpernickel Rye Loaf a la Whole Foods Market

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

A few days ago, I tried the pumpernickel rye boule at Whole Foods Market and it was so great I bought a loaf and pretty much polished it off in one day. Some people dream of lobster or caviar, I dream of good bread. Ever since I learned to make bread, I've not been able to bring myself to even pay 50cents for a loaf or bread - not when I have 20lbs of flour at home. I prefer to make it myself - even if it's not as good as store quality.

I could go there again and pay for another loaf but I would like to make it myself. Some may say this is not authentic pumpernickel bread, but I don't care. I just love it. It was dark and delicious with a chewy crumb and a thick crust. My God, it was bread porn. Maybe I was just that hungry, who knows. It was not the crumb made with bread crumbs, but rather smooth but chewy. Here's a pic.

Does anyone have a recipe for pumpernickel rye bread? If I need special flour or equipment(I'm guessing dutch oven), please let me know. It's the holidays and I wouldn't feel bad about indulging. Plus I have my wild yeast starter begging to be used.

Thanks!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

If you also tell us the nutritional breakdown for 100g, then I would be glad to make an educated guess.  :)

iamsaraiam's picture
iamsaraiam

I tossed the bag already.

Mebake's picture
Mebake

Don't quite think that it is a true pumpernickel, judging from the crumb structure, color, and profile.

Like mini said, we need the ingredients list first. I guess you'll have to buy it once more :)

Khalid

iamsaraiam's picture
iamsaraiam

Khalid, I know that's not the true european pumpernickel. Not going to be a purist here because it tasted great. :)

I went to Whole Foods today and they were nice enough to give me the sticker which had the ingredient list.

Pumpernickel Rye Bread - Net Wt 17oz / 475grams

Ingredients: Organic white flour, water, medium rye flour, organic rye flour, caramel coloring, cracked rye meal, sea salt, yeast, cornmeal.

BTW, the picture I posted was not of the bread, but similar. This pic has sesame seeds on top, but the whole foods bread has, what I believe, is the cracked rye meal on top.

Hope that helps you guys. Thank you!

I think this image is closer.

 

 

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

is the challenge this week from "Inside the Jewish Bakery". My sisters and I are baking on Monday. We bake together separately from three different cities and share pictures. If you have or find, a recipe, please join us in baking this loaf. I often bake Eric's Favorite Rye, or Old School Deli Rye and we really enjoy them. So far, success at the really black breads and/or pumpernickel has eluded me. Since this is my husband's favorite bread I would love to learn how to achieve that consistency that is somehow solid and dense but remains coarse and chewy.

Hope you'll join us on Monday.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

From this picture it could be one third wheat (or more) and two thirds rye.  Cracked rye meal tells me it is a rye sourdough because cracked rye is a typical rye starter food.  Cornmeal is for the bottom of the loaf sliding in and out of the oven.  So it looks like a sourdough recipe with added yeast, 60 to 70% rye.  That would be my guess.  

Mini

iamsaraiam's picture
iamsaraiam

Can you help with the instructions/recipe? I'm still painting by numbers. :)

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

and see what turns up.   Carmel coloring is not a needed ingredient.  I just pulled a high rye out of the oven.   Aroma to suspend time.   

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

list we know that each ingredient has to weigh more than the one following. We also know that this bread's least amount of hydration is somewhere around 65% and that the wet weight before baking is somewhere around 15-17%  more than the dry weight  so somewhere around 555 g wet weight is close.   The ingredient list pushes the weight of the white flour up and the rye flour down in order to get enough water for 65% hydration.  My formula shows a max of a little over 47% rye with the rest of the coloring coming from 15 g of caramel coloring.  I'm also guessing this bread is an wholly commercial yeast variety since most commercial bakers don't use SD as a starter for grocery chains, even WF unless they proudly, and rightly so,  put Sourdough boldly on their labels.   If you want SD just sub 10 g of SD starter and build a levain for the 5 g of instant yeast yeast building a poolish.  You can also put a little instant yeast in teh dough for a boost to the SD levain.

Here is the formula I came up with :

 Poolish or SD starterBuild 1%
Instant Yeast51.55%
Rye4014.29%
Water4014.29%
Total Starter8530.36%
   
Starter Totals  
Hydration97.67% 
Levain % of   Total15.32% 
   
Dough Flour %
Medium  Rye11039.29%
AP or Bread   Flour17060.71%
Dough Flour280100.00%
Salt62.14%
Water16960.36%
Dough   Hydration60.36% 
   
Total Flour323 
Water211 
T. Dough   Hydration65.33% 
Whole Grain %47.21% 
   
Total Wet Weight555 
   
Add - Ins %
Caramel Coloring155.36%
Total155.36%

Hope this gets you close and others may have additional solutions.

iamsaraiam's picture
iamsaraiam

Wow - who knew bread could be so complex!

Thank you for the detailed description... all my simple soul knew was the ingredients listed first were more than the subsequent. LOL

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

who some flour, salt, water and yeast can impart such complex appearance, taste and smells and the variety is endless with different proportions. Start adding in different flours, colorings, seeds, nuts, fruits, sprouts, soakers, chops, malts etc and there no telling what will happen.  The Earth could stop spinning for all we know - especially on 12-21-2012 :-) 

Personally, If were baking this bread at near 50% rye I would want the hydration approaching 75%^ or more.  I was giving WF the benefit of the doubt and saying they had 47% rye,  my real guess is that the rye is only 20-30% and that weight is taken up with some more AP flour and water.   Or, their ingredient list is not quite kosher :-)

Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving.

iamsaraiam's picture
iamsaraiam

Thanks again.

Wishing you a happy holiday season.

iamsaraiam's picture
iamsaraiam

I'm back again and hoping someone has a recipe I can duplicate at home. I've avoided WFM like the plague, but I've gone there 3 times in 2 weeks for this bread.

Looking at dabrownman's info(and confirming this site is too advanced for me), here's my interpretation:

1. Combine 5g instant yeast, 40g water and 40g rye flour. It does not say how long to let this sit, but I'll just guess overnight.

2. Next day, add 110g medium rye, 170g bread flour, 6g salt, 169g water to poolish made in step 1. Add caramel colouring (I have browning -  http://www.sams247.com/foods/BLUE-MOUNTAIN-BURNT-SUGAR-12-OZ.aspx)

3. Mix/Knead and let rise for a couple hours.

4. Sprinkle cornmeal in dutch oven, place boule and bake in covered dutch oven for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

 

Please, please please...correct me. I'm taking a wild guess here and probably wrong on all accounts.

PS: I'm confused about the cracked rye. Looking online, cracked rye is rather chunky. Do I grind this to a flour consistency and make the starter with it?

Thanks!

 

Thank you!

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

color comes from its covered low, long and slow baking schedule.  Some try to circumvent this arduous process by putting in, caramel coloring, instant coffee, cocoa, or barley malt syrup, chocolate malt etc to get a dark color in as little time as possible.  I do it all the time myself but prefer to bake it right.  here are som pumpernickle naking schedules

Norm Berg’s Black Pumpernickel

About 1 hour before bake time, preheat your oven to 500°F/255°C, with the baking surface in the middle and a steam pan on a lower shelf.   Bake for 15 minutes and reduce heat to 400°F/205°C. After 15 minutes more, reduce heat to 300°F/150°C and continue baking until the center of the loaf reaches an internal temperature of 210°F/100°C, 80-90 minutes. Remove to a rack and let cool for at least 24 hours before cutting.

Andy’s Black Pumpernickel 

Pre-heat the oven to 280°C. Load the pan, apply steam, and turn the oven down to 110°C. Keep a supply of steam in the oven and bake for a total of 4½ - 6 hours.

Hammelman’s Pumpernickel

Place the pans in the oven and bake at 350°F for 1 hour.

Turn oven down to 325°Fand bake for 30 minutes.

Turn oven down to 300°F and bake for 1 hour.

Turn oven down to 275°F and bake for 2 hours.

Turn oven down to 260°F and bake for 2 hours.

Turn oven down to 225°F and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Turn oven down to 200°F and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Turn oven off at 11 pm and leave pans in oven until morning (oven was still warm)

Dabrownman’s Revised JH Schedule

375 F - 30 minutes

350 F - 30 minutes

325 F - 30 minutes

300 F – 30 minutes

275 F - 30 minutes

250 F - 1 hour

225 F - 1 hour

200 F - 1 hour

Turn oven off and leave the bread in the oven until morning or 8 hours

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32497/100-whole-grain-rye-and-spelt-yw-sd-scald-and-seeds-altus-test 

Another JH Variation

400 F - 30 minutes

375 F - 30 minutes

350 F - 30 minutes

325 F - 30 minutes

300 F - 1 hour

275 F - 2 hours

250 F - 2 hours

225 F - 1 ½ hours

200 F - 1 ½ hours

Let rest innoven for 8 hours

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32781/ww-sd-yw-multigrain-pumpernickel 

Another BM Variation 

375 F - 30 minutes

350 F - 30 minutes

325 F - 2 hours

235 F - 2 hours

200 F - 2 hours

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32943/whole-grain-dapumpernickel-aroma-bread

DB’s White Pumpernickle

375 F - 30 minutes

350 F - 30 minutes

325 F - 1 hour

300 F - 1 hour

275 F - 1 hour

250 F - 1 hour

225 F - 1 hour

 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32982/two-way-75-white-bread-dapumperized-scald-and-seeds

Happy pumpernickel baking

 

 

 

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

in a short window when compared, under 2 hours.  I still get a dark natural crumb as the loaf darkens with exposure to air as the days go by.  The cracked rye would be sourdough/yeast food and later particles in the crumb.  Include in the starter or initial soaker or poolish to soften.  

I think the water in the descending order recipe was moved because this is the ingredient list of the baked bread, after loss of water in the oven.  And any retailer would not want to list water first due to psychological impact.  Some will go so far as to list it twice or more if they can.  If the caramel colour is thinned, it will add hydration. The rye was listed 3 times for example so as to look or not look like a large % of rye.  Rye does scare people strange enough.  The nutritional info would provide some missing clues as fibre and protein content would be higher than say a whole wheat bread in comparison.  If not, then DB's suspicion of only 30% rye would be correct.  Other clues can be found in the texture of the baked crust.  Cracking and tears is typical of high percent rye loaves.

About this site being too advanced for you, you couldn't be more wrong.  We all started somewhere.  The discussions vary from beginning to advanced and everywhere in between.   With time we all collect and forget information.  Glad you came back and hope you do again.