That sandwich really made me want to be in NY again! But the bread is the star of the show. Looks like the real deal.
Apologies if you have already posted it, but would be great to have the recipe. Been trying to make a bread like that for ages. I have nice resulting breads, but not ones that look like the real deli rye loaves like these do, both in terms of crumb and crust.
I too miss the dirty noisy hustling and busling streets of NYC.
Since the formula I used is copyright protected I cannot in good conscience post it here. It would not be fair to my friend Stan. That being said, the co- author of the volume in question, Norm Berg, (RIP) posted his original formula scaled down, right here in our public forum. Enjoy!
Completely understand regarding the IP for the recipe and thank you very much for pointing me to the relevant posting here. Sometimes one needs a pointer from someone who knows their way around the site here rather rely on the search function to find some of the gems. Shame the link s and photos don't seem to work.
Will convert to metric and look-up making a rye sour.
I was just looking at this recipe, Rene, and it struck me how little rye flour it takes to make a great sour rye.
From what I understand, a rye sour is simply an all-rye starter or levain -- and from my experience with my starter, 1 cup's worth, a volume measure, might include somewhere between 100 & 200 g of fermented rye flour, depending on how firmly packed and how much it had expanded while fermenting. A pound of first clear would be 453 g. So, at best, this sour rye would be 30% rye. And it could be half as much.
Perhaps I've got this wrong and brother Roadside Pie can de-mystify.
A rye sour is merely a sourdough culture made with rye flour. I just do two room temperature feeding of my white flour culture with rye. That gives me the mostly rye sourdough culture. If my math is correct Renee, the total preferred flour (all rye) from I.J.B. is 40%. I would shot for that mark. I use dark rye not the white rye called for. Additionally, for the first clear high protein King Arthur Sir Lacealot makes for a fine substitute. It is 14% protein. Use as high a protein as you have 12% bread flour should work a peach!
I tried a couple of part-rye bakes this week just to experiment a little with some of the things I have been gleaning lately here and on other threads.
The first was pretty much the one I do usually, which comes out with an open crumb and along the lines of a French Campagne loaf.
For that I pre-fermented 60g of whole rye flour with 30g of liquid SD starter and 60g water. Left overnight and by the morning it was nicely risen and with good bubble activity. Mixed with another 25g of dark rye flour and then 300g of AP. Rye content 25%. Did around 4 S&Fs and 2 letter folds during about 4h BF, then shaped and proved for about 1h and baked at 220C in DO, 20min covered 15min lid off.
This loaf came out like always, which I describe as a Campagne loaf. Nice crunchy and darkish curst and excellent oven spring. Only slight difference from past bakes was a slightly unevenness in the alveoli, with a few quite large ones, but a nice bread to eat both fresh and later toasted.
My next loaf I decided to up the pre-fermented dark rye to just a little over 30%. Thought I would do the preferment in 2 stages. First 10g liquid SD starter, 20g dark rye flour, 20g water. Then use the 50g first build for a second build with 100g dark rye and 100g water. The 1st build took around 5h to double and get bubbly and the 2nd was growing super well after about 4h, but decided to stick it in the fridge as it was getting too late to do the rest of the bake. In the morning, it had a really nice activity and rise, so use as is out of the fridge to mix in with the rest of the flour (AP) and water to BF. BF started growing strongly and did about x3 S&Fs and then a couple of letter folds, but strangely, after the 3rd SF noticed the surface of the dough getting a little overstretched, the smell getting quite a bit more sour, and the rise kind of stalling. The dough still felt firm enough and not really losing its shape, but it just didn't seem as active anymore. after about 6h I shaped and proved the loaf for about 45min and baked at 220C, 20min covered, 15min lid off.
The second loaf did not have much spring, the crumb was tightish, but bubbly, the crust very dark, and the flavor much more sour than the 1st loaf. Not a bad bread and has more the crumb of the deli loaf, but it has definitely over fermented. Is it that with a high content of prefermented rye the BF goes much faster even if the rise is not as pronounced? How do I know with such doughs when the BF has got to the right point if not by doubling of the volume? Is a poke test more reliable? Or is there some other way to know that the dough has reached the right level of fermentation? Does the usual 1:2;2 feed ratio for prefments used for other flours also apply to rye?
I am asking because I was expecting the 2nd loaf with the much more active preferment to have less rather than more sourness and realise that rye is more different to wheat than maybe I was allowing for. In fact, the loaf with the 30g SD starter, 60g flour and 60 water preferment was almost not sour at all compared to the 2nd one.
Very glad for any pointers as to how I can get closer to the kind of loaves you and Rob have produced. Feels like judging the right point to stop the BF and getting the preferment right are key points for improvement.
I'm no expert -- and those who know more than me may disagree -- but I have a few quick thoughts, ReneR:
-- I'm curious about your inclination to do a 2-stage levain, as my thought would be, particularly at at 1:2:2 in each stage, that doubling would increase the sourness. When I do a deli rye, I tend to feed the levain somewhere on the order of 1:10:8 and give it 8 or 9 hours at room temp. On my most recent bake, I did 1:5:4 -- because I didn't have enough rye flour -- and due to a scheduling anomaly, it sat for 12 hours and was, I would say, slightly more acidic than optimal.
-- putting the levain in the fridge -- though necessary for your timing -- likely made it more sour. From what I understand, retarding puts yeasts in stasis while the acids party. This is part of what makes cold proofing good for flavor. But rye reacts differently ... and most things I've read discourage cold proofing breads with higher %ages of rye. Of course, you were only retarding the levain, but the same rules probably apply.
-- then there's the bulk fermentation. Ryes do move quickly when they get going and 6 hours on the counter was likely too much. Your feel was probably accurate. When you felt the change in the dough, it probably was time to shape and proof.
-- I have found that ryes require doing a lot more by feel and a lot less by the clock or measuring the rise. For instance, when I make a 1:10:8 rye levain, it generally does not rise at all. And I can generally tell if I've let it get overdone if it has lost some structure and flattened somewhat.
I'm still learning as I go. But I hope that helps a bit.
Levain - my rye levain goes really fast at 18-20 C. If I want to use it in 12 hours, I give it 1:10:10. If I really want to make sure that the loaf has only mild sourness, I must use the levain just before or at peak, and this is especially important if the % of pre-fermented rye is 30% or more (I've gone to 60%), if not the dough degrades during BF. Ah yes, another thing. I find that rye levains don't seem to drop from peak as quickly or as much, even though they are probably getting pretty acidic!
BF - even at 60% PFF, I find the volume increase to judge end of BF quite reliable, because the remaining 40% bread flour does the heavy lifting (can't speak for other grains or even AP). It's usually about 75% increase for me. My last loaf of 30% dark and 30% medium took 4 hours at RT 20C.
I think your sourness probably came from the refrigeration and extended BF. I once did a double spelt build at 60% PFF and that was too sour for me; I also did not like that BF was that short. That's why with my 60% rye now I use a double levain.
Many thanks Lin and Rob. Most of your hunches/suggestions were on the money. I tried the 30% dark rye with a 1:5:5 overnight levaine with all the rye.
Mixed that into the final dough in the morning with AP for the remainder at a 70% hydration. The levaine was well active and nicely domed. I decided to use the aliquot to monitor the BF.
Did a couple of stretch and folds but noticed that the fermentation was progressing quite fast, not so much in terms of volume but more in terms of acidity. Having read some posts by Benito about using ph change rather than volume to judge BF and proving, I thought, in the absence of a ph reader, to use taste and smell to determine the acidity, and both were already quite acid by the time I would have done the 4th S&F I decided to go straight to a letter fold and shaping there and then. Proved for about 1h and then baked.
Loaf came out very nice. Moist, soft, airy, crunchy but thinish crust, very slight sour tang, great oven spring.
My takeaway from that is that with high wholemeal flour content, the acidity might be more of a factor than volume when judging the duration of BF and proving. Having said that, the aliquot showed that by the time I put the loaf into the DO, it had doubled in volume, but at the end of the BF stage it was maybe not fully at 1.5x volume.
I almost didn't manage to get one as it was devoured by the family. Always a sign of a good loaf in my household.
I am trying the same loaf with a shaggy SD biga for tomorrow to see how it compares. I am not sure that biga is suited to dark rye, but curious to see how it comes out.
Beautiful crumb. Curious about the shaggy SD version. Perhaps you might obtain a more intense flavour but without a proportional increase in sourness. Let us know!
So the SD rye biga loaf did not came out too dissimilar to this loaf. Maybe a tiny bit less sour. It was rising fast so I shortened the BF quite a bit.
The crumb was soft but tighter, probably due to the shorter BF. Not dissimilar to that in your photo below. In fact it's more like the texture of the deli load I'm after. Crust was nice and crunchy after the bake going a little soft the day after. No cornstarch was used, but was like German bread the day after.
No photos unfortunately because between dinner last night and breakfast today it was all eaten up by the family. So a good vote of approval it seems.
Realising that for a more deli type of loaf in terms of crumb it's better to have shorter BF and maybe slightly longer proving, whereas for a more campagne type loaf it's better to have a slightly longer BF and shorter proving, but with a similar overall fermentation time for both from mixing in the sour to baking.
Pleased overall as both were made with AP for the non rye flour and they both came out really great and without to much deterioration in gluten with the a high dark rye content.
I guess the thinking with regard to rye and wheat is to use the rye to bring in vigorous fermentation and a degree of sourness to the loaf and use the wheat flour to give it some lift to have a not too heavy loaf. So, as long as that can be achieved, the rye has done its job, even at a low-ish %.
One of my most baked SD loaves is a kind of campagne loaf with around 25% dark rye, all used in a liquid pre-ferment and the rest strong white or AP. What I have struggled with in comparison with the rye here is the crumb and crust. My loaves come out with large alveoli and a crunchy but thickish crust, very much like a typical campagne loaf.
No problem with that, we always strive for large alveoli, right? But Pie's rye and the ones I have tried in NYC and also Poland like Pie's have a tighter but still soft and chewy crumb, and a crunchy but thin crust. And, try as much as I can, I still cannot get to that. The cornstarch wash might help with the crust, so I will try it, but think there is more to that than just the wash. But the crumb I am not sure what to try.
So I made this recipe -- at 45% whole rye/55% bread flour. It tastes great. But the crumb is a little tighter than I would have wanted, and certainly tighter than I have achieved in the all-sourdough/no yeast method I've been using.
Maybe I could have fermented it longer (I did 2 1/4 hours.) Maybe the crumb was impeded by my scheduling -- I left the dough on the counter to double in volume before I shaped it, and I baked it soon thereafter.
Whatever, these are quibbles. The crust is thin and crispy and it's great eating.
I gave a slice to my father, who grew up in new york city and spent all his life in the NYC area, and, by virtue of all that eating experience (he's 101), is a self-taught deli rye connoisseur. He loved it.
Interestingly, Will, it's actually sourer than the all-sourdough versions I made. And that's gotten more pronounced in the almost 24 hours since I baked it.
That sandwich really made me want to be in NY again! But the bread is the star of the show. Looks like the real deal.
Apologies if you have already posted it, but would be great to have the recipe. Been trying to make a bread like that for ages. I have nice resulting breads, but not ones that look like the real deli rye loaves like these do, both in terms of crumb and crust.
I too miss the dirty noisy hustling and busling streets of NYC.
Since the formula I used is copyright protected I cannot in good conscience post it here. It would not be fair to my friend Stan. That being said, the co- author of the volume in question, Norm Berg, (RIP) posted his original formula scaled down, right here in our public forum. Enjoy!
Please post your results too.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6145/sour-rye-bread-norm039s-formula
Completely understand regarding the IP for the recipe and thank you very much for pointing me to the relevant posting here. Sometimes one needs a pointer from someone who knows their way around the site here rather rely on the search function to find some of the gems. Shame the link s and photos don't seem to work.
Will convert to metric and look-up making a rye sour.
Keep posting your evocative classic loaves Pie!
I was just looking at this recipe, Rene, and it struck me how little rye flour it takes to make a great sour rye.
From what I understand, a rye sour is simply an all-rye starter or levain -- and from my experience with my starter, 1 cup's worth, a volume measure, might include somewhere between 100 & 200 g of fermented rye flour, depending on how firmly packed and how much it had expanded while fermenting. A pound of first clear would be 453 g. So, at best, this sour rye would be 30% rye. And it could be half as much.
Perhaps I've got this wrong and brother Roadside Pie can de-mystify.
Rob
Correct, Rob.
A rye sour is merely a sourdough culture made with rye flour. I just do two room temperature feeding of my white flour culture with rye. That gives me the mostly rye sourdough culture. If my math is correct Renee, the total preferred flour (all rye) from I.J.B. is 40%. I would shot for that mark. I use dark rye not the white rye called for. Additionally, for the first clear high protein King Arthur Sir Lacealot makes for a fine substitute. It is 14% protein. Use as high a protein as you have 12% bread flour should work a peach!
Best
Will F.
Thanks, Will!
Thanks Will. You posted while I was writing my reply to Rob, so maybe you address some of my questions there.
Regarding the "European" style crumb. Just shoot for a full proof.
I tried a couple of part-rye bakes this week just to experiment a little with some of the things I have been gleaning lately here and on other threads.
The first was pretty much the one I do usually, which comes out with an open crumb and along the lines of a French Campagne loaf.
For that I pre-fermented 60g of whole rye flour with 30g of liquid SD starter and 60g water. Left overnight and by the morning it was nicely risen and with good bubble activity. Mixed with another 25g of dark rye flour and then 300g of AP. Rye content 25%. Did around 4 S&Fs and 2 letter folds during about 4h BF, then shaped and proved for about 1h and baked at 220C in DO, 20min covered 15min lid off.
This loaf came out like always, which I describe as a Campagne loaf. Nice crunchy and darkish curst and excellent oven spring. Only slight difference from past bakes was a slightly unevenness in the alveoli, with a few quite large ones, but a nice bread to eat both fresh and later toasted.
My next loaf I decided to up the pre-fermented dark rye to just a little over 30%. Thought I would do the preferment in 2 stages. First 10g liquid SD starter, 20g dark rye flour, 20g water. Then use the 50g first build for a second build with 100g dark rye and 100g water. The 1st build took around 5h to double and get bubbly and the 2nd was growing super well after about 4h, but decided to stick it in the fridge as it was getting too late to do the rest of the bake. In the morning, it had a really nice activity and rise, so use as is out of the fridge to mix in with the rest of the flour (AP) and water to BF. BF started growing strongly and did about x3 S&Fs and then a couple of letter folds, but strangely, after the 3rd SF noticed the surface of the dough getting a little overstretched, the smell getting quite a bit more sour, and the rise kind of stalling. The dough still felt firm enough and not really losing its shape, but it just didn't seem as active anymore. after about 6h I shaped and proved the loaf for about 45min and baked at 220C, 20min covered, 15min lid off.
The second loaf did not have much spring, the crumb was tightish, but bubbly, the crust very dark, and the flavor much more sour than the 1st loaf. Not a bad bread and has more the crumb of the deli loaf, but it has definitely over fermented. Is it that with a high content of prefermented rye the BF goes much faster even if the rise is not as pronounced? How do I know with such doughs when the BF has got to the right point if not by doubling of the volume? Is a poke test more reliable? Or is there some other way to know that the dough has reached the right level of fermentation? Does the usual 1:2;2 feed ratio for prefments used for other flours also apply to rye?
I am asking because I was expecting the 2nd loaf with the much more active preferment to have less rather than more sourness and realise that rye is more different to wheat than maybe I was allowing for. In fact, the loaf with the 30g SD starter, 60g flour and 60 water preferment was almost not sour at all compared to the 2nd one.
Very glad for any pointers as to how I can get closer to the kind of loaves you and Rob have produced. Feels like judging the right point to stop the BF and getting the preferment right are key points for improvement.
I'm no expert -- and those who know more than me may disagree -- but I have a few quick thoughts, ReneR:
-- I'm curious about your inclination to do a 2-stage levain, as my thought would be, particularly at at 1:2:2 in each stage, that doubling would increase the sourness. When I do a deli rye, I tend to feed the levain somewhere on the order of 1:10:8 and give it 8 or 9 hours at room temp. On my most recent bake, I did 1:5:4 -- because I didn't have enough rye flour -- and due to a scheduling anomaly, it sat for 12 hours and was, I would say, slightly more acidic than optimal.
-- putting the levain in the fridge -- though necessary for your timing -- likely made it more sour. From what I understand, retarding puts yeasts in stasis while the acids party. This is part of what makes cold proofing good for flavor. But rye reacts differently ... and most things I've read discourage cold proofing breads with higher %ages of rye. Of course, you were only retarding the levain, but the same rules probably apply.
-- then there's the bulk fermentation. Ryes do move quickly when they get going and 6 hours on the counter was likely too much. Your feel was probably accurate. When you felt the change in the dough, it probably was time to shape and proof.
-- I have found that ryes require doing a lot more by feel and a lot less by the clock or measuring the rise. For instance, when I make a 1:10:8 rye levain, it generally does not rise at all. And I can generally tell if I've let it get overdone if it has lost some structure and flattened somewhat.
I'm still learning as I go. But I hope that helps a bit.
Rob
I've had the same experience with rye.
Levain - my rye levain goes really fast at 18-20 C. If I want to use it in 12 hours, I give it 1:10:10. If I really want to make sure that the loaf has only mild sourness, I must use the levain just before or at peak, and this is especially important if the % of pre-fermented rye is 30% or more (I've gone to 60%), if not the dough degrades during BF. Ah yes, another thing. I find that rye levains don't seem to drop from peak as quickly or as much, even though they are probably getting pretty acidic!
BF - even at 60% PFF, I find the volume increase to judge end of BF quite reliable, because the remaining 40% bread flour does the heavy lifting (can't speak for other grains or even AP). It's usually about 75% increase for me. My last loaf of 30% dark and 30% medium took 4 hours at RT 20C.
I think your sourness probably came from the refrigeration and extended BF. I once did a double spelt build at 60% PFF and that was too sour for me; I also did not like that BF was that short. That's why with my 60% rye now I use a double levain.
-Lin
Many thanks Lin and Rob. Most of your hunches/suggestions were on the money. I tried the 30% dark rye with a 1:5:5 overnight levaine with all the rye.
Mixed that into the final dough in the morning with AP for the remainder at a 70% hydration. The levaine was well active and nicely domed. I decided to use the aliquot to monitor the BF.
Did a couple of stretch and folds but noticed that the fermentation was progressing quite fast, not so much in terms of volume but more in terms of acidity. Having read some posts by Benito about using ph change rather than volume to judge BF and proving, I thought, in the absence of a ph reader, to use taste and smell to determine the acidity, and both were already quite acid by the time I would have done the 4th S&F I decided to go straight to a letter fold and shaping there and then. Proved for about 1h and then baked.
Loaf came out very nice. Moist, soft, airy, crunchy but thinish crust, very slight sour tang, great oven spring.
My takeaway from that is that with high wholemeal flour content, the acidity might be more of a factor than volume when judging the duration of BF and proving. Having said that, the aliquot showed that by the time I put the loaf into the DO, it had doubled in volume, but at the end of the BF stage it was maybe not fully at 1.5x volume.
sounds like a brilliant bread, Rene!!! Congrats!!! Any pix?
Rob
Here is a pic, Rob.
I almost didn't manage to get one as it was devoured by the family. Always a sign of a good loaf in my household.
I am trying the same loaf with a shaggy SD biga for tomorrow to see how it compares. I am not sure that biga is suited to dark rye, but curious to see how it comes out.
Beautiful! You're making me hungry. Thanks!
Keep us posted on the biga results.
Rob
Beautiful crumb. Curious about the shaggy SD version. Perhaps you might obtain a more intense flavour but without a proportional increase in sourness. Let us know!
So the SD rye biga loaf did not came out too dissimilar to this loaf. Maybe a tiny bit less sour. It was rising fast so I shortened the BF quite a bit.
The crumb was soft but tighter, probably due to the shorter BF. Not dissimilar to that in your photo below. In fact it's more like the texture of the deli load I'm after. Crust was nice and crunchy after the bake going a little soft the day after. No cornstarch was used, but was like German bread the day after.
No photos unfortunately because between dinner last night and breakfast today it was all eaten up by the family. So a good vote of approval it seems.
Realising that for a more deli type of loaf in terms of crumb it's better to have shorter BF and maybe slightly longer proving, whereas for a more campagne type loaf it's better to have a slightly longer BF and shorter proving, but with a similar overall fermentation time for both from mixing in the sour to baking.
Pleased overall as both were made with AP for the non rye flour and they both came out really great and without to much deterioration in gluten with the a high dark rye content.
Thanks for the clarifications Rob. Very helpful.
I guess the thinking with regard to rye and wheat is to use the rye to bring in vigorous fermentation and a degree of sourness to the loaf and use the wheat flour to give it some lift to have a not too heavy loaf. So, as long as that can be achieved, the rye has done its job, even at a low-ish %.
One of my most baked SD loaves is a kind of campagne loaf with around 25% dark rye, all used in a liquid pre-ferment and the rest strong white or AP. What I have struggled with in comparison with the rye here is the crumb and crust. My loaves come out with large alveoli and a crunchy but thickish crust, very much like a typical campagne loaf.
No problem with that, we always strive for large alveoli, right? But Pie's rye and the ones I have tried in NYC and also Poland like Pie's have a tighter but still soft and chewy crumb, and a crunchy but thin crust. And, try as much as I can, I still cannot get to that. The cornstarch wash might help with the crust, so I will try it, but think there is more to that than just the wash. But the crumb I am not sure what to try.
Rene: My go-to rye these days is a riff on Ilya's fantastic foolproof recipe, which is similar to this one but without the added commercial yeast. I pushed the rye sour to 45% of total flour (the remaining 55% is bread flour) and, when my starter is tip-top, it turns out a delicious bread -- crispy crust, tight but soft crumb, and the whole loaf seeming light as air.
Rob
The simplest and the most loved...
Possibly a malicious link above ?
All of them point to TFL posts.
Paul
It seemed suspicious to me. With you stamp of approval I will now check it out.
Additionally.
Apologies to the OP for my distrust.
https://youtu.be/WrMGGouem3c?si=senDHbZBhlVCcijc
Good work, Will.
Paul
Hi Will:
So I made this recipe -- at 45% whole rye/55% bread flour. It tastes great. But the crumb is a little tighter than I would have wanted, and certainly tighter than I have achieved in the all-sourdough/no yeast method I've been using.
image0(23).jpeg
image1(18).jpeg
Maybe I could have fermented it longer (I did 2 1/4 hours.) Maybe the crumb was impeded by my scheduling -- I left the dough on the counter to double in volume before I shaped it, and I baked it soon thereafter.
Whatever, these are quibbles. The crust is thin and crispy and it's great eating.
Thanks!
Rob
I gave a slice to my father, who grew up in new york city and spent all his life in the NYC area, and, by virtue of all that eating experience (he's 101), is a self-taught deli rye connoisseur. He loved it.
Thanks again, Will.
Rob
I think the "European" crumb we achieved, is in fact near perfect for a NY deli rye. Smile...
I am so glad you enjoyed the formula.
Interestingly, Will, it's actually sourer than the all-sourdough versions I made. And that's gotten more pronounced in the almost 24 hours since I baked it.
101 years? Unbelievable! If only everyone could live that long!
Very nice. Make sure you keep the notes for this bake. It is the one you want to replicate, over&over again.
Best
Will F.