February 26, 2008 - 6:07pm
Sour rye bread (Norm's formula)
Norm (nbicomputers) has generously posted his (scaled down) formula for Sour Rye Bread. I made this bread this morning.
Sour Rye Bread (Norm's formula) Loaf
Sour Rye Bread (Norm's formula) Crumb
Here is Norm's formula with my annotations and the procedure I followed.
Formula
- Cake Yeast ...... 1/2 oz. (I used 1 1/2 tsp Instant Yeast.)
- Water ............. 8 oz
- Salt ................ 1/4 oz (About 1 1/4 tsp.)
- Sour (rye) ....... 8 oz (about 1 cup)
- First clear flour 1 lb
- Caraway seeds 1 T (not in Norm's formula)
Procedure
- Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached and mix at Speed 1 until all ingredients are mixed in a ball. Scrape dough off the paddle into the bowl. Remove the paddle.
- Knead the dough with the dough hook at Speed 2 until the gluten is well-developed. About 10 minutes. Scrape dough onto lightly floured board (I use a Silpat.) and hand knead very briefly. Form into a ball.
- Lightly oil a bowl and place the dough in it. Cover. Let the dough rest 20 minutes.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. Form into long loaves or round loaves. Place the loaves onto parchment paper, placed on an inverted jelly roll pan and sprinkled with coarse corn meal then folded in the middle to form a "wall" between the loaves, so they do not touch when risen. (Essentially, a parchment couche.) Spray the loaves lightly with spray oil and cover them with plasti-crap.
- Let the loaves rise until doubled in size (or 90% doubled). This took about 100 minutes at 69F.
- An hour before baking, place a pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven and a cast iron skillet on the bottom rack. Heat the oven to 450F.
- When loaves have doubled in size, pull the parchment out flat to separate the loaves by at least 3 inches, spray (or brush) them with water, score them with 3 slashes across the long axis of the loaves and slide them, still on the parchment, onto the pizza stone. Pour 1/2 cup boiling water into the skillet, and close the oven door.
- After 5 minutes, remove the skillet using a hot pad, keeping the oven door open as briefly as possible. Pour out the water and put the skillet where it won't burn anybody!
- If the bread seems to be getting dark too fast, turn down the oven to 440F (I did this after about 10 minutes.)
- Continue baking until the loaves are done. The crust is well browned and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. This was a total of about 25 minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack before slicing.
- While the loaves are cooling, brush them with cornstarch solution. (Whisk 4 tsp cornstarch in 1/4 cup of water. Pour this slowly into 1 cup of slowly boiling water, whisking constantly. When the solution is (precisely) somewhat thickened, take off the fire. It can be used while still hot. It can be kept for a few days refrigerated for later use.)
Review of the eating will follow, but I have to eat some first, tonight along with krupnik, a very traditional soup made with beef (tonight, with lamb shank), various beans, barley, lentils (and usually potatoes).
David
Share
Comments
Wow again! That looks like it would taste like the old rye we would get warm from the baker across the street many years ago. How does it taste????? Would it be too much trouble to write out the recipe and how you did it? GREAT JOB. weavershouse
Hi, weavershouse.
I just set up the blog topic with the intention of adding the formula and procedure, but I got momentarily sidetracked.
Thanks for the compliments. Look for an expanded lead message coming right up!
David
Here is Norm's formula with my annotations and the procedure I followed.
Formula
- Cake Yeast ... 1/2 oz. (I used 1 1/2 tsp Instant Yeast.)
- Water .......... 8 oz
- Salt ............. 1/4 oz (About 1 1/4 tsp.)
- Sour (rye) ..... 8 oz (about 1 cup)
- First clear flour 1 lb
- Caraway seeds 1 T (not in Norm's formula)
Procedure- Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached and mix at Speed 1 until all ingredients are mixed in a ball. Scrape dough off the paddle into the bowl. Remove the paddle.
- Knead the dough with the dough hook at Speed 2 until the gluten is well-developed. About 10 minutes. Scrape dough onto lightly floured board (I use a Silpat.) and hand knead very briefly. Form into a ball.
- Lightly oil a bowl and place the dough in it. Cover. Let the dough rest 20 minutes.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. Form into long loaves or round loaves. Place the loaves onto parchment paper, placed on an inverted jelly roll pan and sprinkled with coarse corn meal then folded in the middle to form a "wall" between the loaves, so they do not touch when risen. (Essentially, a parchment couche.) Spray the loaves lightly with spray oil and cover them with plasti-crap.
- Let the loaves rise until doubled in size (or 90% doubled). This took about 100 minutes at 69F.
- An hour before baking, place a pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven and a cast iron skillet on the bottom rack. Heat the oven to 450F.
- When loaves have doubled in size, pull the parchment out flat to separate the loaves by at least 3 inches, spray (or brush) them with water, score them with 3 slashes across the long axis of the loaves and slide them, still on the parchment, onto the pizza stone. Pour 1/2 cup boiling water into the skillet, and close the oven door.
- After 5 minutes, remove the skillet using a hot pad, keeping the oven door open as briefly as possible. Pour out the water and put the skillet where it won't burn anybody!
- If the bread seems to be getting dark too fast, turn down the oven to 440F (I did this after about 10 minutes.)
- Continue baking until the loaves are done. The crust is well browned and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. This was a total of about 25 minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack before slicing.
Review of the eating will follow, but I have to eat some first, tonight along with krupnik, a very traditional soup made with beef (tonight, with lamb shank), various beans, barley, lentils (and usually potatoes).David
I don't have a point of refrence since I never had an authentic NY Jewish Rye, but, it looks fantastic. Many thanks to Norm and yourself for working to size this for us and help with the process. I might suggest that you move the actual recipe up to the first post so people can use the add favorites feature.
This is the bread you were trying to get a crispy crust I believe. How did that turn out?
Eric
Hi, Eric.
I've never lived in NY. I've visited, and I've had rye bread in delis there. They were okay. Good even. But they were not substantially different from the Jewish rye breads I grew up on in California. Is this heresy? Well, so be it.
Having said that, I adore Jewish rye bread. As I've said in other topics, it's why I started baking bread again after a lapse of decades.
As for the crisp crust quest, see below.
David
Norm offered his formula for sour rye bread, along with a number of helpful suggestions, in response to my attempts to get a cracklier crust on my bread.
I had been using Greenstein's formula. The crust got soft as the bread cooled. I remembered from my childhood eating rye bread with a crisp yet thin crust. Subsequently, something weavershouse said about getting bread still warm from the local bakery got me thinking that my memory may have been of eating the heel of the rye bread my mother had just picked up on the way home from the bakery, not what the crust was like a couple of hours later.
Anyway, Norm's formula, compared to Greenstein's, uses much less rye sour. The dough is dryer. It cleans the sides of the mixer bowl but sticks a little to the bottom as kneading is near done. While Greenstein has you bake at 350F, Norm specified 440-450F.
The end result is a shorter bake time. The crust is thicker and, while very hard when it comes out of the oven, it softens with cooling. However, it is even chewier than Greenstein's crust. The crumb is a bit less open and dryer in the mouth. The bread is, overall, denser. To my taste, this is not absolutely better or worse, just different. I have had both styles of Jewish ryes before and enjoyed them all. Now, I would say that Norm's version would work better for a hot corn beef sandwich, dripping with lovely fat. No soggy rye bread from this loaf!
The taste was excellent for this type of rye. Making it with white rye when I had been making most rye breads with whole rye made it seem blander, but this is the authentic Jewish sour rye without a doubt.
I would certainly recommend that anyone who enjoys rye breads make this. It's a classic.
David
david i must say i was a little unsure about this since your starter started with whole rye and that will change the things a little. but you did my formula proud
i must say it looks as good as any rye i ever baked. Yes the formula with that percentage of white rye sour is for the jewish rye (being new york or not) you can go as high as 60 percent sour if you want a little more bite and the seeds are optional i forgot to list them but you spotted that and added it to your bread rightfully so. the seeds depend of you have your real teath a seed in a denture is painfull and i had a lot of old customers that well you know.
i am glad you like it. bring a loaf to me here in ney york when your up my way and ill buy the corn beef.
Pro Baker for over 25 years-----Ret
Gee whiz! I take that as a high compliment.
And thanks again for your tireless, generous sharing of your knowledge and experience.
By time I had fed my sour twice, no more than 1/4 of the flour in it was whole rye, by my estimate. It sure looked white. I wanted to give it a transfusion!
I probably will fiddle with the percent of sour a bit. I like a more sour flavor, even if it isn't the traditional flavor. I suppose I could also achieve this by making a firmer sour, at least for one build, and refrigerating it overnight.
I'd be proud to bring you a rye bread in New York! I'll plan a layover on my next coal delivery to Newcastle!
David
try to get the sour older i don't know how old your starter is but all white rye does get stronger the older it gets. your color both crust and crumb are as perfict as it can be. as you said this is the authentic jewish rye but feel free to increase the hydration and percent of sour but make only one change at a time to track you results
you would be most welcome and i will give you one more complment...
i have seen pro bakers with many years of experince that were NOT ABLE to produce a rye that looks as good as yours.
and for all the post readers out there if you want to remember or just taste what a deili sandwitch was like back in the 50s and 60s try this bread.
keep baking
Pro Baker for over 25 years-----Ret
Thanks for the stories, recipes and expert baking. You must be proud David to hear Norm say how well you did. Wow. weavershouse
Your dinner looks great David! I'm in the middle of this except I didn't have any white so I had to sub Pumpernickel. I appreciate the detail in your post, I'm absorbing a lot this week. Slowly I feel like I'm starting to understand rye flours. This formula set me back a little since it is quite a bit dryer than I usually mix with rye's. Usually it's a sloppy mess. I added a little extra water with the Pumpernickel being so absorbent.
Thanks David and Norm for a great post.
Eric
Hi, Eric.
Norm's formula is, indeed, dryer than the Greenstein formula for sour rye, and you are correct that subbing pumpernickel flour for white rye will require more water. Also, it will produce a very different tasting bread.
I had been eating the rye bread baked with white rye sour for the past couple of days. This morning, I had some sour rye made with Greenstein's formula but using whole rye. Very, very different flavor.
You may prefer the deeper flavor of whole rye and pumpernickel, but I'd encourage you to try making Norm's sour rye with a sour fed with white rye, if only to experience the taste of a classic Jewish sour rye bread.
David
I want to know what is "first clear flour"??? I was looking at bakers supply houses,supermarkets and nobody know what I'm talk about.
See here:
http://www.theartisan.net/flour_descriptions_and_definitions.htm
To quote:
" Patent flour is the purest and highest-quality commercial wheat flour available. Patent flour is made from the center portion of the endosperm"
" Clear flour is the by-product of straight flour that remains after patent flour is removed. Clear flour is graded into fancy, first clear, and second clear. Clear flour is darker in color than the other flours previously mentioned, as it is made from the part of the endosperm closest to the bran. ... First clear, milled from hard wheat, is often blended by the baker with low-gluten flours to lighten the texture of breads such as rye or whole-wheat yet maintain the deep color desirable in such breads"