December 2, 2008 - 5:27pm
Rye
I've been told that rye is no more difficult that whole wheat, that the "secret" is a good sponge. Izzat so?
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I've been told that rye is no more difficult that whole wheat, that the "secret" is a good sponge. Izzat so?
It depends on the percentage of rye flour and what method you intend to use. Doughs with 80% rye and above aren't too difficult to make compared to wheat breads, but they take some practice as the consistency of the dough and the kneading technique is very different than wheat doughs. You also need a sour starter.
Doughs with 30-80% rye are probably the hardest because in that range you are aiming for a crumb that is something like a wheat bread, but the kneading and handling are going to be somewhat different.
Below 30% rye you just use the same techniques as for any wheat bread.
Check Hamelman's _Bread_ out of the library and read the chapters on rye for more information.
sPh
The conversation was about "light rye" which you define as less than 30%. That's very helpful.
Reading things on the 'net was getting me very confused. I should expect the dough to be a bit wetter than my usual sourdough? Is there are particular reason I can't use AP in a light rye?
Your mention of the library got me thinking.
My local library only has about 7 books that even mention bread:
Tea breads and coffeecakes / Elizabeth Alston
Going with the grain : a wandering bread lover takes a bite out of life / Susan Seligson
Confessions of a French baker : breadmaking secrets, tips, and recipes / Peter Mayle and Gerard Auzet
The bread machine cookbook / Donna Rathmell German
The bread bible / Christine Ingram and Jennie Shapter
Beard on bread, by James Beard. Drawings by Karl Stuecklen.
As Mike G indicates below, there are two things to consider: darkness of rye flour and darkness of rye bread.
In North America there are five types of rye flour and three rye products generally available:
.
and as Mike mentioned the darkness indicates how much of the whole rye grain kernal is included in the flour. White rye flour is basically pure starch.
Personally I use Hodgson Mills' whole rye flour for all recipes because that is the only one I can find that is not marked for nut contamination. If you don't have that restriction both King Arthur and Bob's Red Mill have a variety of flours under different names (e.g. BRM pumpernickel is German-style rye meal; KA pumpernickel is a very coarse whole rye flour).
None of these names or products are consistent from one manufacturer to the next, and the Inspectorate of Rye Flour of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland would put every US miller in jail for violation of rye grading laws so don't even think of comparing US rye flour to German ;-)
Most rye bread recipes found in the US can be made with either whole rye (Hodgson Mills or BRM) or with medium rye when found unless specifically stated otherise (Hamelman!)
As far as rye bread recipes go, "light" and "dark" can refer to
or a combination of these four factors.
OK, where is all this leading? Based on my rye journey of the last 3 years and what you have posted, it sounds as if you would be best off starting with Levy's Real Jewish Rye from Rose Levy Beranbaum's _The Bread Bible_. This is a yeast bread with about 20% total rye flour. To start out with I would recommend the following process:
After you get this down you can start doing more by hand, try Rose's yeast pumpernickel (really a very dark rye not a pumpernickel), and then try sourdough.
You should be able to have your library interlibrary loan both Levy's _The Bread Bible_ (there are several - be sure you get RLB's) and when you are on your way Hamelman's _Bread_ (which is very advanced). Reinhart has some interesting ryes in his _Whole Grain Breads_ as well; the volkornbrot is quite good to my mind.
Last tip: when you start dealing with doughs above 50-60% rye you are dealing with a substance that is more like pottery clay than wheat dough. I do all my "kneading" in a big ceramic bowl with a plastic scraper.
Hope that helps.
sPh
Thanks to you for your explanation about rye flour. I've found the terms confusing. One other term that I have seen is fine rye. Do you have any idea what is meant by that?
I'm also curious as to how you kneed the "clay" with a plastic scraper. Are you folding the dough? I just kneeded what felt like a basketball of rye flour. I thought I was making the vermont sourdough and had to add a very significant amount of water so I checked the recipe again and discovered I had placed the decimal point too far to the right (for the second try at the bread) while converting ounces to grams.
This gave me a 57% rye instead of 10. I fudged by using JH 66% recipe, sort of. Ihave two loaves and can hardly wait for the recommended 24 hours to cut and see what is there. They are a funny sight.
"Fine" rye just means that the rye grain has been ground into really small particles and isn't too gritty. For example, I use organic whole rye that's sold in bulk bins at my local co-op. Even though it's whole rye, it has been ground into a very fine, almost sandy texture. This is different from say Hodgson Mills, which is available in a lot of supermarkets. Hodgson Mills is also whole rye, but it's much more coarse. The pieces of bran and germ, etc. are bigger. It's closer to what would be used for pumpernickel. Both are good to use though.
I'm far from an expert, but I can share some of my novice rye experiences...
Without getting into the science which can be complicated, ryes tend to be mixed with wheat flour to give them that more familiar feel and rise. High gluten bread flours work better than AP because rye flour has little gluten of its own. Also, the term "light rye" doesn't necessarily refer to the percentage of rye vs. wheat. There are varieties of rye flour that have been sifted to remove more of the bran and germ. This produces "lighter" rye breads. In my experience, I have only worked with whole rye, since that's all I can find in the stores. A lot of recipes for Eastern European ryes (Poland, Czech, etc.) call for "white rye", which is basically the "AP" version of rye flour--no bits and pieces left in it. I have never used it or "medium rye", which is somewhere in the middle of white and whole rye. I hope that helps a little.
I make Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough regulary with 10% organic rye, and for variation substitute whole wheat (freshly milled) for the rye . Even though the remaining formula and method is identical, I get quite a different "feel" when using the whole wheat; the dough feels looser and more delicate than when using the rye during the bulk fermentation and folding phase.
Gavin