Sourdough or not rye breads

[lovebenton0]

Thanks, Chef, for extending your time and knowledge to us.

I've been baking bread fairly regularly for about 35 years for family and friends -- so I'm just a piker. No commercial baking experience; basically self-taught through (mostly) fun and (occasional) flop trial and error. Embarrassed to say that no I haven't read any of your books. But do plan to remedy that in the future.

Rye breads. Dark, light, seeded or not, soft rye loaves, hard, dense German breads, sourdough, or yeast. I love them. Sometimes I get that "perfect" loaf. But not always with the same method. Rye is a heavy flour and sometimes it just does not want to proof out nicely for me after a good first rise. I do turn the dough.

What do you recommend for rise and proof? How many times do you allow the dough to rise? Am I being too impatient with the proof? Am I allowing the dough to become too dry? Am I just not getting it somehow?

[Peter Reinhart]

Thanks, Chef, for extending your time and knowledge to us.

I've been baking bread fairly regularly for about 35 years for family and friends -- so I'm just a piker. No commercial baking experience; basically self-taught through (mostly) fun and (occasional) flop trial and error. Embarrassed to say that no I haven't read any of your books. But do plan to remedy that in the future.

Rye breads. Dark, light, seeded or not, soft rye loaves, hard, dense German breads, sourdough, or yeast. I love them.  Sometimes I get that "perfect" loaf. But not always with the same method.  Rye is a heavy flour and sometimes it just does not want to proof out nicely for me after a good first rise. I do turn the dough.

What do you recommend for rise and proof? How many times do you allow the dough to rise? Am I being too impatient with the proof? Am I allowing the dough to become too dry? Am I just not getting it somehow?

←

Hi,

I was wondering when we'd hear from the rye bread community (I call it the vocal minority). Your question is hard to answer without looking at your formulas so it could be any of the hunches you have. Adding more rise time may be the best place to start. Get a good first rise before going to the final shaping and rise (usually two rises is all it takes, primary (bulk) and final (individual loaves). Whose recipe or formula are you following? Aside from mine (which you haven't seen yet) there are some good ones in George Greenstein's book, "Secrets of a Jewish baker" as well as in many other fine books. The directions usually get you pretty close but your home environment could be a factor (dryness, room temperature, etc.). Since you're not a rookie, I'm assuming your dough looks and feels good (if too dry, it's okay to add more water while mixing), so maybe it's just fermentation time. Look at some recipes from various books and see if you're doing something counter to what is suggested, or try a new recipe, one that sounds good to you. Please keep me posted. Rye bread is an under-appreciated bread at this time in American baking.

Peter

[lovebenton0]

Thanks, Peter. It is hard to find a good rye bread. And I do prefer baking my own (for pleasure and flavor/texture) over what I can usually get in this area.

I planned to start a sourdough rye, but will go with a straight yeast for the purpose of following your suggestions. I have a basic bread book by Dolores Casella, A World of Breads , published in 1966 that I use as a basic formula reference, tweaking as I go along. (Just can't resist that.) But I will cut the tweaks this time and let you know how that works out.

If it's beautiful I'll post a pic, otherwise we'll just eat it.

[lovebenton0]

OK. Fixing Rye bread lesson one. Swedish Beer Rye (seedless)

Formula: 1:1 bread flour to rye flour (6 cups total for two loaves), 14 ounces beer; 2 Tbsp granulated yeast, 2 tsp salt (I waited to add salt as suggested on other thread), 1/3 cup butter, 1/2 cup molasses.

Mixed half of the flour with beer/molasses for reaction time before adding yeast and remaing ingredients. I turned dough during the bulk fermentation. The dough had a fine rise. Not overly long, about 80 minutes after last turn. Room temp was 80 degrees. No AC on to blow cold, and I did as I generally do -- raise buttered dough, and proof (buttered or egged, depending) dough in a cupboard with partial saran and a damp cloth cover. Turned out onto board. Shaped gently, buttered, spritzed with water, and proofed until almost doubled in size -- about another 80 minutes. Dough began to form open windows in the crust. I baked it at 350 for 40 minutes with a steam pan in the bottom of the oven. Got some oven spring out of it, but that made splits larger.

It was not smoothly beautiful. Very good flavor (which never seems to be the problem with my rye -- it always tastes good!), has a good texture, nice irregular though smallish holes (1/4 to 1/3 inch) in interior, and enough tooth to the crust. Made a good sandwich/toast bread.

Crust fix is next I suppose.

Any comments on this, Peter? Anyone?