Schwarzbrot (70% rye) - Salt-sour experiment

I‘ve been looking for a way to try out the Monheim Salt-sour process for a while, as I've been researching ways to get complex rye flavors without the pain of a 3-fold Detmolder. It's described as having a good aroma and being "almost as good" as a full detmold. And we recently had the perfect weather for it in Tucson: 90s in the day and 70s at night  The Salzsauer process is unusual in that it adds salt to the elaboration of the rye at 2% This is similar to what classic French bakers sometimes do with pain-au-levain in warm weather; or it might be thought of as a "rye pate fermentée". Because of the salt, the souring takes longer (18-24h) with the trade off of a longer period of stability.  Also due to the salt, one requires 10% of the flour in the inoculation (i.e. 20% seed starter if its 100% hydration, instead of a more typical 5% or 10%.). 

So I decided to adapt Hamelman's 70% Rye with Rye Chop Soaker from Bread to this method. For this riff I subbed out whole rye flour for the medium, and I substituted a Monheim Salzsauer process for the one-stage Detmolder. But--with 35% whole rye flour, 30% whole wheat flour 35% rye chops--should this be called a Mischbrot? Despite the fact it's almost 50% wheat (if you count the chops as an addition rather than a flour), it really doesn't have the smooth-grey color or texture of typical Mischbrot. Not that surprising given it's 100% whole grain including chops. Moreover, it tastes and looks quite similar to volkornbrot . So I'm sticking with the  Schwarzbrot label .

 Formula:

Process:

Build the rye sour, with final elaboration 18-24h prior to baking, going from 95F down to low 70Fs over the range.  Because I bake infrequently, with a rye starter in the fridge, I first built it out at 1:2:2 an extra 12 hours earlier to get the ripe 36g inoculation needed for the final Salzsauer. Note that I took out an extra 9g for storage at the end of the first-build, rather than the usual second build, because I didn't want my storage chef to be salted. (If you have 36g active rye starter, jump right to the salzsauer, as this is in theory a one-step process.) 

Using 113F water in the final build will let things start at DT 95F snd gradually decrease. Let the final sour ferment for 18-24h until it smells good. (I left it outside in the 96F desert afternoon and it had dropped to 73F by next morning, at which point I brought it in for the remainder.) The literature says start 30-35C and drop to 20-25C.

Soak the rye chops about 6 hours prior. I used my coffee grinder to approximate chops, but it was closer to a mix of meal and chops. I used a cold soak with 2% salt. (If any water evaporates, add it in later.)

Mix the dough. It's 70% rye, no kneading needed. However, note the 78% hydration in the formula is the low end. Since it's rye you'll likely need to add lots more water to get the texture to where it's like clay that holds together but is loose enough it can expand.  In my case it took tons more water than stated, so was more of a bassinage. It's going into a loaf pan, don't worry about over-doing the hydration. I used 0.6% IDY, but I'm not sure it's needed. (I thought it interesting I had a higher percentage of salt in the levain than the final overall bread!)

Bulk ferment 30 minutes (with IDY). Proof in floured loaf pans 60m. No scoring of any kind needed. 

Bake 450F covered for 15m then drop heat to 410F or lower to finish for 40-60 minutes until it sounds evenly resonant (rather than a dull thud) when tapped on all sides and across the bottom. Take out of the pan for the last 15 minutes or so to dry out the sides. Cure for at least 24h covered in a towel before slicing. Peak flavor was about 3 days in.

Comments:

• I'm now a fan of the Salzsauer process and will try it with other ryes. As advertised, it had a rich aroma together with a nice balanced sour flavor. I liked that it didn't take much fuss, just leave it out a day ahead of time. This would be great if you wanted to set things up on Friday to bake on a Sunday. I'm skeptical on how important the 95F > 70F is. That was fine this time, and the 95F isn't hard to achieve with hot water. But cooling it might prove a problem much of the year in my climate. The 1-step Detmold supposedly benefits from this same temperature drop to balance the lactic and acetic; but plenty of people just ferment 16-18h at 77F with 5% or 10% ASG; so I'm tempted to just leave it on the counter willy-nilly for 24h and see what happens.
  And do you really need the full 2% salt? I'm curious what exactly the salt does to the yeasts and enzymes-- I was surprised the salt-sour didn't have--for want of a better word--the neutral flavor or smell of a wheat pate fermentée. It was a real sour. And on first glance the odor and flavor did seem better--but I'll need to do more experiments. 
  Because I don't keep such large quantities of active starter, I ended up needing to use 2-stages anyway, so maybe a better comparison is versus 2-stage Detmold process that I also like a lot.  That one requires more temperature control though, whereas this just gradually falls.
• The bread itself is a solid basic German rye!  Recommended, going into rotation. Aroma very nice around day 3, the flavor was sour but mellow, which surprised me given the 35% pre-fermented flour. The soaked chops were very subtle, mostly adding texture.  I couldn't taste the wheat, but I think it took the edge off of the sourness, making the bread somewhat more adaptable than a volkornbrot.
• I think DSnyder's nailed the flavor: "The crust was firm but not hard. The crumb was soft and moist but slightly crumbly and less dense than I expected. The aroma is powerful with rye, yet the flavor is relatively mild. It is rye with no distinctive whole wheat tones, yet the whole wheat must have mellowed the rye flavor. There is a sweet note to the aftertaste. This bread has lots of character."
• This formula is a good “base” recipe to explore German mixed ryes.  Using medium rye instead of whole would make a more standard graubrot / hausbrot. Taking out the wheat entirely would make a volkornbrot. Add flax or sunflower seeds at will. Add scald at will. For instance, I think Kellner’s  Sauerland Schwarzbrot is just a complicated version of the same formula? Unless I'm mistaken, that's even the monheim  sauersalz they're calling a "sponge" along with a bunch of other tricks? This one's a lot simpler though! 

 crumb very similar to volkornbrot