Adventures in Rye Sourdough Bread

I love rye sourdough with caraway seeds! This post makes me so happy. It was Cooking Manager that first got me going on sourdough at all, of course. Thank you Hannah!

It sounds as if your bread has more rye flour than the kind I make. I will try it! I describe a different style of bread below, with 40pc whole rye and 60pc white bread flour.

Some of my own tips…
1. You don’t really have to use a rye sourdough starter. I just use a bit of whatever “Doughy Wild” is still sitting in the fridge. (Yes, I named my starter. It’s like a pet.)

2. I use 40pc whole rye flour and 60pc white bread flour. Otherwise the dough doesn’t develop enough gluten strength to rise and stays lumpy and dense.

3. You mentioned your bread wasn’t that tangy. To give the bread a tangier flavor, the sourdough organisms need more time to work. I mix a few Tablespoons of starter with half the rye flour + enough water to make a stiff paste (stiff is important…it will encourage lactic acid flavors instead of yeasty flavors. You want more of a lactic acid character with rye bread,) the morning of the day before I bake. That night I add the other half of the rye flour to the paste + a little more water that evening, and by the morning of the baking day the rye flour is soured and has all sorts of interesting rye flavor. Then I mix in the white flour, the seeds and the salt and a little commercial baking yeast and more water, knead it a lot to develop the gluten. And then let the mixture ferment an hour or so. (I can give you the exact recipe if you want. It’s from Jeff Hamelman’s book BREAD.)

The morning of the day I bake I divide the dough, shape the loaves and again let them rise only an hour or so. Otherwise they sort of collapse in the oven and get too dense (because of the rye flour – it can over-rise very easily.)

I bake them on a cookie sheet pan covered in semolina or coarse corn flour (to prevent sticking) at about ~460F for 40minutes, then like Jim says, let them sit overnight to develop good crumb structure.

Yum yum!!!!

Ms. Krieger added these pithy words on Dec 19 11 at 3:26 PM

You’ve become an expert–I will be sure to consult this comment next time I make the bread.

Hannah added these pithy words on Dec 19 11 at 5:26 PM

Faye,

Yes, that is the recipe. It makes a classic Jewish rye-style loaf much like Hannah remembers. You can use whole rye flour for the 40pc and it works beautifully.

I recently tried a rye-walnut bread from that same section of Hamelman’s book. I was skeptical, but the flavors are good and it, too, works beautifully and is delicious.

Ms. Krieger added these pithy words on Jan 02 12 at 2:00 AM