January 19, 2022 - 5:12pm
[poll] rye community bake
All of the recent rye bakes look so good! Judging from Dan's post, Suggestions for Community Bakes, in Nov 2020, it seems there were over a dozen votes for a rye CB. The NY Deli Rye CB, hosted by Alan, was great fun, and I personally learned a lot from it, but 100% rye bakes would seem to warrant their own CB. Is there any interest in a CB this winter (and perhaps a rye baker willing to host it)? Based on my initial searches, this seems like uncharted territory in previous TFL community bakes. Please let me know if I missed one.
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I'm wondering if it should be any rye or a particular rye that can be open to interpretation. Something like a pumpernickel which has no definitive recipe but does have some guidelines.
I'll get my thinking cap on.
Pumpernickel is a great candidate. It is fun to read some of the old threads on this particular bread, which seems to evade any kind of universal definition. It has the potential to check a number of new baking boxes (for some of us): [x] rye, [x] unleavened bread (potentially), [x] low + slow bakes, etc.
A question - do you need special equipment to do the long slow bake for a pumpernickel?
My oven can really only do a minimum of 100°C, maybe that would be sufficient, but I've so far been afraid to leave something in overnight at a temp like that as I can only imagine flaming disasters, or a sleepless night as I wake up to check!
It is baked above 100°C, fyi, smth like 120C I think. Ovens should be OK in that range, but indeed needs a very long bake which might be scary (especially with gas ovens I imagine).
To be honest what might be more tricky for pumpernickel in a lot of countries is sourcing coarse rye... And a lot of high % rye recipes include something like that, or malt (often red rye malt, which might not be easy to source), malt extract etc. Some tricky ingredients. But there are always simpler recipes, and the CB could be more flexible and all-encompassing, with a few suggested recipes of different complexity.
and an example of a rye recipe that is open to interpretation, instead of an exact recipe, so everyone could add their own understanding. In no way does it have to be pumpernickel.
However if you want to try pumpernickel then the 14 hour bake does not have to be through the night. The recipe can be flipped so it bakes through the day and you can keep an eye on it.
Slow cookers might be a good idea when it comes to long slow bakes at low temperatures. You'll just need to figure out the best method.
I had similar concerns when first contemplating that. Our oven is a cheap Hotpoint gas oven (seemingly without insulation of any kind) with a flaky ignition unit that I don't trust unattended. Even in the best case, it doesn't seem like a good idea to run any gas oven unattended. I was browsing alternative options, and I believe an Instant Pot or crock-pot can also be made to work. We have a Zavor Instant Pot, which I would trust for the application.
or similar would be perfect for pumpernickel. These things are made for cooking for a long time. Do you think it'll be possible to put the bread in a large can inside the cooker and cover it?
Don't think i'd trust my oven either. I'd certainly wish to keep an eye on it if I tried it.
I had the same idea in mind. I'll have to check for the largest insertable pot size to see what the loaf volume would be. That's my favorite way to make rice (in pressure cooker mode).
Hmmm...guess this is totally right. I've done it for years, but then I've almost died on a few occasions so there's that. I'm making a pumpernickel right now and am on the second mix of 30 minutes, then was going to put into the pullman. It's about 1280 grams. Suggestions for a container - and do you sit it in a water bath in the slow cooker?
But then again I see the logic behind sitting it in a water bath if a slow cooker needs something in it. We don't want it to be like a kettle boiling with no water. Question is is it safe for a slow cooker to have nothing in it except for a loaf pan and no liquid?
Water ever the case when it comes to the bread itself I would think it'll need a covering of some sort to prevent moisture building up.
P.s. just been looking up cooking bread in a slow cooker and it might be as simple as putting the loaf pan in the crock pot and adding water if you want steam. But slow cookers generate steam anyway and baking for a long time with a lid on might generate more than enough steam. So i'd do without any water and lid at first. If you see too much steam building up then perhaps a tea towel between the lid and the crock pot will be good as long as it isn't dangerous.
I think it's a good idea!
I'd be up for it, and pumpernickel sounds great!
I'm in.
My suggestion for the parameters is this:
"At least 85% whole grain rye." And that's it. The rest is open-ended.
That allows for both Borodinsky and pumpernickel. And allows for all: whole rye flour, any grind (coarse/medium/fine) rye meal, any rye schrot, and any whole rye berries.
85% is just the flour/meal/schrot/grains. Add-ins, such as seeds, sweeteners, and spices would still be open-ended
?
I agree, could lower the suggested limit to 80% just in case, but otherwise sounds like a good plan. But also of course if someone goes below the suggested % no one is going to get kicked out :)
I'm also willing give it a go at the 80% rye level. The 100% level is more limiting and challenging. How about any extraction level of rye (light, medium, or whole)? Or does that make it too open-ended?
I wouldn't say there is a huge difference between 80 and 100% in my experience... But any extraction level welcome IMO. Not many 80-100% light rye recipes, but some very interesting ones, don't see why we should exclude them.
That seems like a good guideline -- a little more inclusive but with the same intention and baking skills (more or less). I've been wanting to try Borodinsky but haven't gotten to it.
I also believe that the 80% level can show TFL members (and non-CB participants) the wide range of possibilities of rye. It's not all pumpernickel or deli rye!
Saw some pumpernickel bread and made a point of looking at the ingredients....
Wholegrain Rye Meal*, Water, Sugar Beet Syrup*, Barleymalt Extract*, Sea Salt
It was a dark dense bread with no discernible air bubbles. The bread looked very malty which showed in the crumb that wasn't dry and in fact 'appeared' quite moist, for such a dense bread, from the caramelisation and extracts.
and you can choose one or another. So it seems Borodinsky and Pumpernickel are the two contenders however ingredients and baking techniques can be an issue. So rather then specifying any rye bread and being locked into one or the other we do the following....
Rye Bread Community Bake
So this way one can do a borodinsky or pumpernickel and exact ingredients are not necessary. And one can even come up with their own recipe, or adapting other rye recipes, employing one or both of these techniques.
Although, as usual, anything in the spirit will do.
I think that's a bit restrictive actually, lots of rye breads don't have a scald and are baked normal length of time.
I think basically what we could say is that rye is the primary ingredient and dough doesn't depend on gluten strength. Having 100% rye dough and adding lots of VWG to make texture like wheat bread is not quite in the spirit of what I imagine.
who mentioned VWG?
So if it's just a rye bread then it's the same as our last rye bread community bake.
No one, I'm just explaining my idea why say that gluten is not really important in the recipes.
Actually in the last CB all (most?) entries certainly relied on gluten development and rye was not the primary ingredient (they were <50% rye). So I think with my definition they wouldn't fit.
Rye bread with rye being the main flour and any other grains should be as an addition.
That sounds like a plan. I'm up for that. It does take away the need to buy some difficult to find ingredients.
Are there any TFL rye bakers interested in hosting (including those in this thread)?
In the worst case, if nobody has time or interest, I could help with the basic mechanics to get things started.
Guys, so as you don’t step on anyone’s toes, have you asked Dan Ayo about doing the CB? It was his idea originally and his baby. I wouldn’t want to do anything to offend him.
Benny
It’s perfectly fine if others want to get involved. The purpose of the Community Bakes is to create an on-line environment where bakers get together and learn from one another to better bake a specific bread.
I hope the Community Bakes perpetuate long after I’m gone.
Your reply doesn’t surprise me Dan, but I just thought it would be polite to ask. Hope you’re doing well.
Benny
Needs assessments are bottom-up approaches to discovering what participants most desire or need from a learning experience.
Needs can arise from goals, concerns, and failures. Patterns in needs might highlight desirable ingredients, processes, skills and resources that match up with certain recipes, substitutions, and co-participant wisdom.
Here are some possible questions:
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Try out new rye making techniques that I haven’t yet tried.
Finding or making the needed ingredients has always been a challenge for some of the more complex rye recipes for me.
I’ve been lucky in that both of the 100% rye bakes I’ve done were successes surprisingly.
Just bake more rye and explore whether or not I actually like 100% rye baking especially the flavour of the breads.
Having had only two bakes I don’t think I’d be much of a resource.
Have to sit with this a bit, but great questions.
Me too
In order:
I'd like to better understand the technical aspect of rye baking (in addition to rye flour properties and home milling technique). I've had reasonable success following a 100% rye Vollkornbrot recipe on a handful of occasions, but am not entirely sure which variables to focus on to improve things.
Lack of foundations ("if this then that").
No major failures (slight over-proofing). Rye baking seems to be a classic case of easy to learn but difficult to master.
Home baking makes it challenging to accumulate lots of experience. Many of us have limited baking time, and our rate of consuming bread is another practical bottleneck that limits the number of times we can bake any bread to observe the impact of changes in ingredients or processes. For this reason, I'm particularly interested in several people making the same bread (even with expected differences in flour, water, chef, oven, etc.), and the group forum is a perfect resource to accomplish this. Including a handful of recommended recipes in the top post can help to accomplish this. Documenting bakes thoroughly can also be a very time-consuming process, and the collective learning CB format provides additional motivation to do this (it is expected people will be comparing detailed baking notes for the same bread).
N/A. I have only baked a handful of rye loaves.
Brooklyn, NY.
If I understand the comments correctly, the general consensus seems to be for:
- At least 80% bakers-percent rye.
- any extraction % (white rye through whole).
- any grind-size: flour, meal, cracked, chops, whole kernals.
Any further comments? Or are we ready to pull the trigger?
(I support Dan as moderator, as he has a good track record running these.)
I think we can start. I'm sure everyone would love to have Dan as a host if he has time and interest.
Dan: Are you interested?
At a bare minimum, and on the purely technical side, I believe the responsibilities include:
Anything missing?
As usual, I expect TFL baking experts will help those of us in need, whether they are actively running it, just participating, or casually tracking it.
So guys, this would be my first CB. Do we just jump in with a bake within the parameters, and post pics and info on our formula, process, results?
Then a dedicated forum post will be created with someone hosting, setting out the parameters and generally starting off with a bake of their own. It'll be pinned to the top of the menu and everyone can add their bakes on the post.
Great, thanks Abe.