Jewish Rye from Greenstein's "Secrets of a Jewish Baker"...David Snyder Adaptation

This recipe comes courtesy of David Snyder who posted his adaptation here.

I have posted about other rye breads I have tried making previously and I have to say all of them including this one have come out pretty good.  The big difference in this recipe is that all of the rye flour is added into the rye sour and the dough is fairly high hydration compared to the other ones I have made.

I ran out of First Clear Flour so I had to substitute 217 grams using KAF High Fiber Flour instead.  I think the bread would have turned out better if I had used 100% First Clear to be honest.  I also added some dried Toasted Onions which I reconstituted in the water used for the final dough which gave the rye a nice onion flavor which I love.

One other point is that I followed Davids instructions for making a 100% Rye starter using Pumpernickel flour and I only ended up with 708 grams instead of 750 grams called in the recipe.  I am not sure if this had that much of an effect on the final bake, but next time I will make a larger batch of starter since I would have liked to keep some for my next bake so now I have to start all over again :(.  I do have to say I have made Rye starters in the past and I really like the way this one came out.  You can follow Dave's excellent instructions here if you are interested in converting your starter to a Rye sour starter.

Also, I did not have any leftover rye bread so I didn't add the Altus to this bake, but next time I will add it to see the difference.  I have made rye breads with and without the Altus and have not made up my mind if it is necessary or not.

The end result of my bake was not as open of a crumb as David achieved, but throw some pastrami and Thousand Island Dressing or mustard for you traditionalists out there and deli nirvana is at your fingertips!

Also note that most Jewish Rye recipes call for the use of First Clear Flour which is taken from what remains after the millers sift the patent flour out of the straight flour.  Patent flour is the purest and highest quality flour available.  First clear flours come from hard wheat and has a protein content of 15.0 - 18.0% which is ideal to strengthen the lower protein content of rye flours which are normally around 6.5%.

High-gluten flour can be substituted for First Clear and has a protein content of 13.5- 14.5%.

White rye flour is very important in authentic Jewish style rye breads and comes from the heart of the endosperm.  It contains only 6.5% protein.  (I used Pumpernickel or Dark Rye in this bake)

Medium rye flour is milled from the whole grain after the bran has been stripped away and is used for high-percentage rye recipes (heavier breads for sure).

Dark rye flour, is what remains of the rye kernel after the white rye flour has been sifted out.  As you can imagine it is very dark and strong flavored flour.