"Nobleman's" bread - 80% rye with seeds

Russian bread, not an old GOST recipe, but rus brot reverse engineered it from the ingredient list: https://youtu.be/1Vwf3TzPTYU

Original formula: https://fgbc.dk/1696

Here is the formula, using a mix of light and whole rye flour available to me, instead of medium rye: https://fgbc.dk/1667

I asked the miller about the extraction rate of the light rye, since they don't know the ash content I had to rely on that to mix whole and light rye to approximate the Russian medium rye standard. It was approximately 1 part light rye to 2 parts whole rye. And it seems that was a good ratio, I didn't need to adjust the hydration relative to the recipe, beyond just using wet hands when mixing, which is normal anyway.

It was my first attempt at free-standing mostly rye bread, so I was following the recipe as close as possible. My new heating system worked well, just set to constant heat, basically, and I had very similar rising times to what rus brot had.

So, for maximum power I refreshed the rye starter from the fridge according to rus brot's refreshment schedule for 70% hydration sour in the end over three feeds. Last feed was done yesterday morning, at the same time as the scald. Scald was kept in the oven, which was manually adjusted to approximately 65C by measuring the temperature.

Preferment contained the starter, scald and more water and flour, and was kept warm until it peaked, around 5 hours.

Final dough was mixed by adding flour to the preferment, together with salt, sugar, molasses (I used black treacle), and seeds. When the dough came together it was surprisingly not very sticky, and easy to handle with wet hands (although until it was mixed properly it was a mess). After kneading for a few minutes to distribute the seeds, the dough was fermented warm for 1.5 hrs. Then shaped using plenty of light rye flour to avoid sticking, and proofed in my bannetons, also generously dusted with rice flour. Proofed for 50 min on the heat pad.

When taken out of the bannetons, I remove excess flour as best I could with a brush, and then brushed with plenty of water. Already here I noticed the dough was cracking for some reason. I suspect the surface might have overdried with too much flour when proofing, but avoiding cracks in hearth rye bread is a challenge with a lot of factors involved.

Sprinkled with seeds (probably put too much), and baked in preheated oven on steel at 260C for 10 min, then reduced to 190C and baked for 50 min. For most of that time switched to bottom-only heat to avoid burning the top.

I am really pleased with the crumb for 80% rye bread, and didn't get too many cracks, so reasonable free-standing rye bread is possible quite easily! Seeds are of course delicious. For some reason the taste of black treacle comes through a bit more than I expected, and the bread is overall on the sweet side.