High rye levain loaves
This is a follow-up bake to my 90% hydration ciabatta minis using different levain proportions. From that experiment I became more confident of using up to 50% rye levain in my dough, so I decided to apply it to this bake.
The goal is an everyday family loaf that has 1) good flavour; 2) extremely subdued sour tang; 3) is not too dense; 4) does not require much mixing; and 5) has most of the whole grains in the pre-ferment for easier digestion (husband suffers).
I made two loaves, one with 40% rye levain in the final dough, and the other with 50%. The measurements for the 50% loaf are:
Levain: 245g
Rye starter: 35g; Rye flour: 105g; Water: 105g
Final dough: 500g
Rye levain: 245g; Bread flour: 152g; Water: 100g; Salt: 3g
Total hydration of the dough, accounting for the levain, is 78%. % of rye/total flour is 40%.
Mixed the ingredients together in the morning and just left it to do its thing. Bulk fermentation to 50% took 4.5 hours at room temp 22C. After shaping, it rested for an hour before it was baked at 220C for 35 mins.
Verdict
Good. Both are keepers. The 40% levain actually did not taste sour at all and had a really fragrant profile. The 50% had a more pronounced character and was only very mildly sour.
Lovely aroma; husband says: "This bread smells like beer." Did not expect the children to eat it, but our 2 year old polished off one slice (extracted the walnuts, though).
I don't know if I will pursue an even higher rye levain loaf. This works for what I wanted. I might incorporate a soaker to to enhance the flavour profile.
I'm experimenting with the same recipe for my red wholegrain spelt. Yesterday was a flop; the dough did not behave. I shall try again.
Picture on left (top): 50% crumb. Picture on right (bottom): 40% crumb.
Comments
Wow! Magnificent!
My go-to deli rye (adapted from Ilya's great recipe) is one where all the rye flour -- 45% of the total flour -- is prefermented in a levain. I've gotten lofty oven spring and a light, open crumb -- but never the kind of expansion you have achieved.
Amazing. Congrats!
Rob
Thanks, Rob, very kind of you to say. I think this one expanded quite a bit because I used medium rye flour - 10g protein, 14g fibre, not sure of the ash content - instead of the wholegrain.
Your rye loaves look amazing - I must say the choclate rye loaf is very tempting indeed. (Not so sure about caraway!)
I had a feeling you were using medium rye. Something about those holes!
The chocolate rye is like a super decadent pumpernickel. And the easy way to deal with fear of caraway is to leave it out. I grew up with it, but I know it's an accquired taste.
If you want to push the rye envelope, I'd make a case for the bread known here as 'Hansjoakim's favorite 70% rye' & for the Berliner Landbrot posted on The Rye Baker site. Both of them are straightforward and delicious.
Rob
Hansjoakim's favourite 70% rye is surely on my to-bake list. Looks excellent, and indeed a relatively straightforward bake.
Have you noticed a big difference - in terms of taste, crumb/crust and dough handling - between apportioning most of the rye flour in the sour/levain compared to in the main dough, keeping total fermentations times relatively equal? Say if 40% of the total flour was rye and 60% white; one loaf had all of that in a levain (say a 8-hour rise) and all white in the main dough resulting in a quick bulk fermentation (2 hours?), and another loaf had all the rye flour in the main dough, but with a low proportion of a white levain/starter used (say 8%), resulting in a long bulk fermentation (10 hours?).
Intuition tells me that the high rye levain loaf would be easier to handle - perhaps because the gluten in the white is less degraded (?) - but I wonder if the taste and crumb would differ greatly. Maybe I could benefit from your experience before I plunge into experimenting.
-Lin
Great question, Lin. Problem is, with the rye breads I really enjoy, I haven't spent much time playing around with the recipes -- because they're so good just as they are.
I have adjusted Ilya's deli rye recipe quite a bit -- mostly because I kept wanting more rye in it and to avoid having to fake up a 'first clear' flour (Ilya uses Swiss ruchmehl, which is a reasonable approximation.) When I first baked it, his concept of fermenting all the rye flour up front seemed incredibly intuitive. Indeed, the recipe seemed foolproof. I could let the levain go 8 hours or 20 and push the rye flour to 45% of total flour. No matter: the final dough mixed up and handled excellently. Bulk fermentation and proofing were a breeze.
Then, for a while, my loaves started to look less good (though they still tasted great). I could feel the problem in my hands: slacker, stickier dough, which led to more spread, less oven spring, and a denser crust. It took a while for me to realize what was going on: an amylase attack, which I surmise came down to 2 factors: 1. I was baking less but still using starter straight from the fridge without refreshing it and my starter had gotten higher in acid and less yeasty & 2. the company whose rye flour I was buying was suddenly milling it a little finer, which meant fermentation was happening quicker. These two factors combined messed everything up and I'm still in recovery.
Still, you've sparked me to want to try some experiments with larger rye levains in other high-rye recipes.
Rob
When it comes to Hans Joakim's lovely recipe, did want to say that it does involve some 'rye technique', as it is at 70% rye.
When I say rye technique I mean:
yes, high-ryes handle differently than wheat breads. For instance, I've come to the conclusion that rye flour would work better in 'wheat paste' than wheat and a thin layer of dough will always attach itself to your hands as you shape it and will resist releasing, whether rubbing your hands in dry flour or scrubbing in cold water & strong soap.
That being said, I used whole rye flour in my first attempt at hansjoakim's great formula and I recall the dough forming a reasonably workable boule. I didn't dock it but simply let it rip on its own and got this (it was my first bake in my brother in law's Anova -- an oven that, in my experience, produces instagram-worthy ryes as long as you're baking one at a time.)
image2(1).JPEG
Also, in my tradition, waiting 24 hours is one of those rules that are destined to be broken. I'm an impatient baker. Sure the crumb will not have completely set and the flavor will not have fully developed, but when a bread comes out smelling like this one did, how can you legislate against ripping into it right away?
Rob
That's a gorgeous looking bread Rob, worth breaking some rules!
it must have tasted fantastic. Interesting points re amylase attack. It's an interesting balance with the less-refreshed, acidic starter isn't it. The increased acidity should keep the attack at bay, but at the same time the yeast population might be a little too low to power charge the fermentation before the dough becomes too slack. Given both possible reasons for the slack dough, increasing the % of rye levain in the dough might indeed help? I hope you recover soon and post more rye breads. I will update you if I do press on with the above-mentioned experiment.
-Lin
Thanks Jon & Lin.
That bake of hansjoakim's rye was the 1st time I pulled a loaf from the oven and thought: 'Wow! I would definitely buy that if I saw it in a bakery.'
Lin: you make a great point about the balance between acid and yeast. David Snyder (an inspirational presence here though he hasn't been posting much recently) said the same thing in response to someone's spreading dough and gummy crumb on a thread a few years back: "You will be more successful with rye breads if most, if not all, the rye flour is pre-fermented. The acid that develops inhibits amylase activity."
Of course, as I have based my 45% rye on Ilya's formula, all the rye flour is pre-fermented. For a while, I worried that my tap water was contaminated, but spring water made no difference. It was only when I realized that my rye flour had become finer that things began to change. I rebuilt my starter with several 1:5:5 and 1:10:10 feedings and reined in fermentation times ... and the bread recovered.
But, to be honest, I'm still not sure what was going on.
Rob
Good strategy there with the high ratio feeds. I'm glad your bread recovered!
You mention that your 45% rye bread has all of the rye pre-fermented. Does that amount to using around 40% levain (out of total dough weight) as well? I see that Ilya's recipe has 26.8% rye and a levain of 250g for total dough weight of 890g, so 22%.
-Lin
Hmmm. I have always assumed that we measure these things as % of total dry flour weight, not total dough weight.
I took Ilya's formula (250 g rye + 25 g from the starter/750 g wheat flour) and pushed the rye percentage higher -- seeking as much whole rye in the mix as I could without sacrificing lightness and loft. I wanted a good everyday rye -- like the ones I grew up with that you can no longer find anywhere in NYC. Also, my partner doesn't love dank super-high ryes. She considers them hiking breads -- loaves she would turn to for nourishment on a strenuous day hike high in the alps (she's Swiss) but not for an ordinary breakfast.
I also got tired of trying to fake up 'first clear' flour, which was traditional at one time in NY-style deli ryes, by mixing all purpose and whole wheat 50/50. I figured if I upped the whole grain rye percentage sufficiently, I could just use bread flour and still get the right texture.
The sweet point seems somewhere between 40% and 45% rye. Much more than that and it becomes a very different bread. So if I'm making a bread with 1 kg of flour, I make a levain of approximately 1:10:7.5--45 g of starter and 450 grams of rye flour, at somewhere between 70 and 80% hydration.
I also dial back the salt (my personal preference is somewhere between 1% and 1.3%) and the caraway a little (if I bake for my 101-year-old father, he always asks "Didn't you put any caraway in this?" Apparently, according to ancient NYC rite, you can never use too much caraway.)
Rob
Thanks for being patient with me, Rob. Yes, I've indeed always assumed the % of all ingredients using the baker's percentage, i.e. as you've mentioned /total flour weight. But when it came to the % of levain, I found it somewhat counterintuitive, especially because with my baking process I tended to work backwards - assuming my standard dough weight of 500g, how much of it shall I apportion to the levain, or how far can I push the % of pre-fermented dough? I suppose it's a somewhat silly way of working backwards, but always going by 500g total dough weight regardless of the hydration % meant I knew how much it had risen in that container, how much in that banneton etc.
But glad to learn that having 40-45% pre-fermented flour - and in this case, all the rye of the bread - is your sweet spot; that's also what I've currently settled on. (But I will press on with experimentation of higher % pre-fermented rye, perhaps using medium rye and see how that turns out).I, too, put way less salt. But re caraway... lol. Actually, I do like caraway; I just need to be in the mood for it. I especially liked it in Schuttelbrot when I was in South Tyrol.
-Lin
I like your backward approach. You're really baking -- envisioning a bread and figuring out how to create it.
Rob
I sliced into my spelt bread 2 hours after it came out of the oven yesterday. I swear it felt completely cool. I did not regret my decision!
Superb Lin.
Well done, these look amazing, and the walnuts are a great addition too. Like the rustic exterior too.
-Jon
Very kind of you. Indeed, they did turn out very rustic looking. Love adding walnuts to most of my loaves - I find them very tasty and yet complementary to most of what I put on bread (cheese, jam, butter, chocolate spread).
-Lin