Rye pain au levain with new Rye flour

i am pleased too, they are wonderful loaves. crumb looks good as well..lucky you able to get hold of bulk flour. can't get it here :( even no varieties to choose from..

a successful and satisfied test run

evon

Hi Khalid,

I think your rye flour is French.   T170 is the French system, measuring 1.7% ash.   German equivalent is T1700.   Also, I note the manufacturer seems to be "Moisson"?   Definitely French derivative word.

If it is a mix, then it could well contain additives.   If for example, enzymes have been added, then they would not have to be listed on the packaging...so it is not really possible to be sure this is additive-free.   Sorry to disappoint.

Nonetheless, you are correct, this is Dark Rye flour where the Doves Farm brand is wholegrain rye flour.

And the bread....my kind of bread!

Very best wishes

Andy

Hi Khalid,

Enzymes are function specific; so it would depend which enzymes were added, as each could be expected to have differing effects on rates of fermentation.   Of course, there is also variability in all different types of rye flour...and I'm sure you are familiar with that.

Best wishes

Andy

Hi Khalid,

I love it when I find something new to experiment with.  Always a nice surprise and I get excited giving the product a 'test run' so to speak.  Always something new to learn about the little things that do make a big difference in outcome in some way.

Looks like your loaf turned out great!  I love how your scoring opened up so nicely and the contrast in color is really pretty to see.

Thanks for sharing your discovery here with us.

Take Care,

Janet

a mill to supply some good quality flour at a reasonable price. I quit buying flour except for unbleached AP and bread flour.  It seemed no matter the cost, organic or not or where i purchased whole spelt, rye or wheat flours, they just never looked, smelled or performed like the flour my apprentice milled at home.

I knew I was making fresh 100% whole grain flours, sometimes orgainic if i can find it, but the purchased flours left much to be desired.  The non home milled flour always took longer to ferment but we have never noticed a difference in organic vs non organic purchased or home milled flour except the 3 times higher price for organic,   We just grind per bake today for maximum freshness and get better quality for very low cost.  I know when I was in Dubai you couldn't get any whole berries but maybe that is different now and you might be able to find some.  Only baking 1 or 2 loaves of bread a week makes milling for them a small and easy task.

Your new flour seems to be making some good bread!  The crust and crumb are delightful and if the flavor is there you have a winner coming out of your oven. 

So what formula did you use for this bake Khalid?  Great holes usually mean less whole grains but younger kids don't seem to like sandwich bread with a lot of rye in them either :-) 

Nice baking Khalid! 

To find a local supply of freshly milled flour is a pleasure. I will have to take your example and do a bit more searching. .Currently I have a flour called "German Rye" which gives no indication of its type. I treat it as medium rye but as I hardly make rye breads it is fine. I will switch to Bob's when I start looking at rye seriously. 

Very nice bake as usual, Khalid!

Beautiful looking loaf with lovely crumb as always, Khalid. Am I right in thinking it's pain au leva in from Hamelman's?

I used to have a problem in obtaining rye flour here, too, until a few years ago. You could only get it from a few selected branches of supermarkets or had to order online from specialised shops or mills. But thanks to growing popularity of home-baking recently, most of supermarket branches seem to sell more varieties of flour these days, including rye and other rarer grain flour.  Hope the same thing will happen where you are, too, one day, soon . Spread the word of virtues of home-baking in Dubai, and your life will be much easier one! :D

Khalid,   Looks like a successful test to me.   Amazing what you can find and where.   I'm awaiting a 50lb sack of rye berries all the way from North Dakota.   Free shipping is an amazing thing.   Great baking!  -Varda

Hi Khalid 

You have ended up with a nice result there,and great fun to be trying new flours too.

I often buy flour from a store in Fremantle which is placed into bulk bins to weigh up as much as you require, i do have to make sure that i read the bag that is usually in front of the bins as asking the staff does not always get a good answer. The problem is often that the flours are mixes that are  just add water and yeast so therefore have salt and usually bread improvers too in the mix.So you may be adding more than just flour to your starter/ levain, hence a slow down.

There is also the chance  at this shop that someone doesn't always put the right scoops back into the right bins. This can be a problem at work where there is a bin with bakers flour and an identical bin with self raising flour sitting alongside one another.

I noticed one of those bags said 50KG, i hope that you didnt lift it with your bad back! Most flour here now is in 25KG bags not like when i was an apprentice and the bags were 150lbs and then when we went to Kilos i think they were 79kgs bags. I used to hate being sent to the dough room at the end of the day to fill the 20 odd mixing bowls with 3 or 4 bags of flour each, that was when i weighed less than a bag of flour now i probably weigh the same as an old bag of flour plus  a new bag of flour and certainly wouldnt enjoy filling all those mixing bowls again.It was a blessing when we went to a bulk bin and the flour came through with a touch of a button and was weighed automatically.

The rye flour still came in heavy hessian bags for a long time and these were always used to make bakers mits or cloths for working on the oven.another job for the boys.

 I was pleased to see that you can buy a terry towel version at one of our suppliers shop recently and got a few pairs for the college as the students were using teatowels folded up, but quite often if they were the slightest bit damp from previous chores  the steam generated almost made them drop the hot trays.

I will take a picture and add it tomorrow, i couldnt believe that non of the chefs had seen or used anything like them before . they amount to a double layer of thick hessian in the home made version to a wad of sewn terry toweling in the purchased variety with a slit for your hands to slip through, they hang around your wrist when you need your hands to load the oven  or pick up trays  but quickly flip around to protect your hands and fingers when stripping tins or trays straight from the oven. simple but effective.

k

Hands free when you are loading the oven

a quick flip and ready for the hot stuff

indest regards Derek