My first rye sourdough

Finally got myself to do a rye bread. I didn’t grow up eating much rye bread and don’t understand it well. To me, it has a bad reputation of being a dense bread. But I do know that there can be a lot of flavor and nutritional value. 

my first attempt at it is only about 25% coarse dark rye (Bob’s Red Mill)  I think it turned out great!  Will up the rye content in the next version. 

200g 100% hydration levain
250g coarse dark rye flour
250g whole wheat flour
250g strong bread flour (KA Lancelot)
250g bread flour
800g water
20g sea salt
20g brown sugar
20g honey 
80g farro grain hot soaker overnight

Built the levain overnight along with the farro soaked in hot water

next morning, autolyze all the flour and water for 1.5 hrs

mixed in levain, salt, brown sugar, honey in mixer for 5 minutes. Very sticky. Rest 1 hr

4 sets of stretch and fold 1 hr apart at 85F. Farro is mixed in after 2nd set. 1.5 hrs final bulk at 75F. It’s quite airy actually. decent gluten development but still very sticky. 

Preheat oven to 500F with Dutch ovens loaded. 
divide to 3 loaves and preshape. rest 15 mins dust too with rice flour, flip and final shape. Load into paper bowls and refrigerate. Lots of rice flour used. 

when Dutch ovens come to temp. Load loaves onto parchment, score and bake covered 20 mins. Cover removed for another 45 minutes at 400F. Much longer than usual due to high hydration. (I actually did different darkness of crust for each loaf and liked the darkest one most)

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the crust turned out light and crunchy with loads of nutty flavor. The crumb was soft and surprisingly light. The farro in the crust were super crispy where as the ones in the crumb gave it a little chew. 

I’ll be making this one again. (But will experiment with higher percentage rye. This may be my favorite bread crust that I’ve made. 

James