Tips on baking with rye
After wondering what makes good rye bread, I came up with surprisingly few tips. The hints I can give are more like little tricks, that seem to make things a bit easier. There is no big theory behind it, it’s what I believe to be true from the couple of rye breads I have made so far.
Rye tips
Environment
I think a rye sourdough starter is best put into a warm place, 24-28°C so that acidity can develop quickly and the starter is ready after 16-24 hours. Letting the sourdough ferment longer than 24 hours is possible and sometimes necessary. This is in contrast to wheat sourdough (levain), if used as leavening, for example in a pain au levain. An over-acidic levain produces an excessively sour and rather unresponsive dough resulting in poor loaf volume and hard crust.
Readiness of the starter
A rye sourdough starter with a hydration of 80-100% is ready when it has risen and collapsed. A typical look at this stage is a rather liquid mass that has receded from the sides of the bowl. It should have a sharp and appetizingly fresh aroma (of ripe apples or slightly sweet and yeasty). Rye starters made with smaller hydrations should be inflated and show a network of holes. Do make the effort of waiting longer if these signs of fermentation are not yet visible.
Water content
Water absorption in rye flours varies. A fine grind yields stiffer and drier doughs. Recipes must be read with regard to a generic description of dough consistency (stiff, sticky, loose etc.). I would recommend this to a lot of authors of bread books: Describe how the dough feels, use a lot of analogies of known things from the kitchen (acts and feels like mashed potatoes, porridge, etc…)
Vollkornbrot
The most common and unnverving problem in this bread seems to be the “flying top” aka “handbag”, i.e. when the top separates from the crumb forming an empty interior. Among experts (cf. Fachkunde Bäcker/Bäckerin: Praxis und Theorie by Albrecht, Ehrlinger, Welskop, Schild) the ruling opinion seems to be, that it is caused by lack of acidity. Cf. “Readiness of starter”. The “flying top” is very often accompanied by a gummy crumb, which seems to back up the above. Any way to increase acidity will help to prevent this pain-in-the-arse.
(Top hasn’t taken off completely in this loaf, but the effect of lack of sourness is quite visible in the crumb: Dense crumb towards bottom, ‘water line’ at the bottom, irregular tacky texture))
Rye breads right after baking
Right after it comes out of the oven, the crumb of a bread made with 80% rye flour is a sticky soft mass that can be squished together irreversibly. Eating a piece of hot rye bread is almost as horrific as eating a heated mixture of water and flour. Resisting the urge to cut into the bread before 24 hours have passed, which stabilizes the crumb, is a last step in the fabrication of a delicious rye loaf.
Rye sourdough as leavening
Naturally, a mature rye starter can be used to make bread dough rise, calling upon the wild yeasts that are living in the starter. In breads made with less than 60% rye and more than 40% wheat I would not recommend it, though. It probably is because of the high acidity of rye sourdoughs, that a strong white flour in the presence of rye will lose some of its force. The resulting crumb of the bread often has a dry, “glass-like” texture. No doubt about it, what will still be called “acceptable” or even “good” is up to the reader.
Hi, foolishpoolish,
I’ve had good results with a 40% rye as well using a rye starter in lieu of yeast. 150% is quite liquid for a rye starter. Any particular reason for that? Thanks for sharing ideas on your blog as well.
theinversecook
9 February 2009 at 16:25
150% is supposedly conducive to yeast growth…which judging by my current rye starter activity is definitely the case!
I’ll post more about my rye experiments on my blog at some point.
Right now I’m having trouble with my white starter :-/ which is making baking simple white breads quite difficult.
Cheers again for the rye tips.
FP
foolishpoolish
9 February 2009 at 18:02
150% would also inhibit the dough to gain toom uch volume quickly. I only fill the jar to 1/3 with my 100%-starter, otherwise it climbs out of there. I noticed that home-ground rye flour feels wetter, so 150% would be quite loose. I will givt it a try.
Good luck with the sudden-gluten-weakening issue.
theinversecook
10 February 2009 at 16:18
Good stuff, I surely needed some hints on this flour, as I have had those handbags, gooey wet dough etc, but since you can translate good German bread I seem to be having better breads, keep up the good work!
Jeremy
Jeremy
10 February 2009 at 16:27
Thanks Jeremy. A never-endings quest, probably. But always good to find another island of safe ground to work from.
theinversecook
10 February 2009 at 23:07
Hi Nils,
This is a great post. Perhaps you can help me out with some baking/slashing/steaming issues with rye breads? Many times when I’ve made rye breads, mainly Roggenmischbrot (60-70% rye), the loaves crack on the sides when I bake them. They look perfectly proofed before they go into the oven, and I slash them usually with several “sausage cuts” across the top. The first 8-10 minutes, everything looks great. The loaf rises, and the cuts open slightly. At that time, it looks as though the crust is starting to “set” and firm up. However, the loaf is still expanding, and deep cracks appear in the crust (typically on the side of the loaf), in between the cuts. It seems to me that the loaf is still rising after the crust is set and has become firm. This happens only on my rye breads… *grrr* Do you have any thoughts on what I can do to avoid the random cracks, and get the loaf to open more in the slashed cuts? I’m “steaming” the oven with some ice cubes when I load the loaf, and I bake it on a pizza stone, typically at 235C. Some places, a receding oven temperature is recommended for rye loaves… do you know if that could be a cure? Start at 250C and then lower to 200C after 10-15 mins.?
Hans Joakim
4 March 2009 at 13:12
Hi Hans Joakim,
my book on German baking says that if the cracks appear on the side, the loaves have been put into the oven lying too close to each other. If you only have one loaf, it might have to do with the heat distribution in your oven. Have you tried a different position of the breads in the oven?
And for cracks appearing at the seam or cuts, it gives the following possible reasons:
- too much flour was used during shaping
- dough is too firm
- final fermentation too short
Also, I’d try to make small slashes at the sides as this will reduce surface tension. And maybe bake at a lower temperature at first? I find that 250°C in a home oven is too hot when compared to baking times suggested by books for the professional baker. From the books I’ve read so far, I think that temperatures for a big bakery’s oven are always a little higher than for a smaller home oven.
I suppose a good loaf should display control of the baker over the result, but don’t be too hard on yourself
The number of variations seem to be high:
- rustic and cracked
- rustic but smooth
- smooth and floury
- smooth and shiny
theinversecook
4 March 2009 at 14:42
Can you comment on whether or not it’s appropriate to retard a rye loaf? Or up to what point it’s fine? I haven’t seen this commented on anywhere. And thanks so much for these tips: maybe I’ll have the courage to venture a try at Vollkornbrot again.
Abbey
5 March 2009 at 06:30
Hi Abbey,
as fas as I know you can retard loaves of rye dough for a stronger flavor, eventually acidity will increase. I’m not sure how stability of the dough is affected though. The ability of rye to trap gas is low compared to wheat and a long final fermentation in the fridge might lead to collapse. I would make the dough a bit firmer than usual. Worth a try.
theinversecook
5 March 2009 at 16:21
[...] consigli per la segale Marzo 10, 2009 Nils ha postato qui una serie di tips interessanti per chi panifica con la segale, in particolare per chi usa la pasta [...]
Alcuni consigli per la segale « Lo Spaccafumo
10 March 2009 at 15:55