This is going to be a bread based on the formula from "Local Breads". The description of the bread sounds wonderful but the formula is off. The hydration of the bread in the book is at 53% and the dough he describes is a very wet dough. Here is a picture of my 100% hydration Rye starter ready for action.
The book says to use your wheat starter and build the rye starter from that. I haven't done many rye breads but the starter is off to a good beginning so I'm excited.
The next step is to mix all the water, starter, and rye flour together. The water is 115°F and this is to make a thick batter. The rye flour is fresh ground of course and the hydration for this mix is 120% more or less. Here is a picture of the mix.
This is to set covered for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Then the bread flour will be added in.
The bread flour was added and mixed until I had a sticky slack dough. Here is a picture of what I got and it is very sticky.
The dough is to ferment an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Then the loaf is to be formed. This is where it is going to get interesting.
Look what just popped out of the oven. I'm really am surprised at how it turned out. There is no picture of this bread in the book. Here is the description from the book "The surface, unscored, becomes covered with cracks and bubbles as it bakes, so the finished bread resembles the volcanic landscape of the region."
I'm planning on cutting it tomorrow at work so the crumb shot will have to wait. I'll do a detailed write up with a link to it if this turns out to be any good.
Update: Here is the link to my write up.
The book says to use your wheat starter and build the rye starter from that. I haven't done many rye breads but the starter is off to a good beginning so I'm excited.
The next step is to mix all the water, starter, and rye flour together. The water is 115°F and this is to make a thick batter. The rye flour is fresh ground of course and the hydration for this mix is 120% more or less. Here is a picture of the mix.
This is to set covered for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Then the bread flour will be added in.
The bread flour was added and mixed until I had a sticky slack dough. Here is a picture of what I got and it is very sticky.
The dough is to ferment an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Then the loaf is to be formed. This is where it is going to get interesting.
Look what just popped out of the oven. I'm really am surprised at how it turned out. There is no picture of this bread in the book. Here is the description from the book "The surface, unscored, becomes covered with cracks and bubbles as it bakes, so the finished bread resembles the volcanic landscape of the region."
I'm planning on cutting it tomorrow at work so the crumb shot will have to wait. I'll do a detailed write up with a link to it if this turns out to be any good.
Update: Here is the link to my write up.
Replies
Now is this bread any relation to the Volcanic Rye recipes? It sounds interesting should I fire up my rye starter?
Terri
I have had problems with some of the recipes that I tried and saw some blogged comments on some serious flaws in his formulas. Initially I guessed my problems were caused by my inexperience with Breadmaking. But I still like to revisit the book, his stories are wonderful and the pictures are so beautiful. But as my experience with sourdough grows I am more and more convinced that many factors influence every sourdough recipe. It is hard to cover all of the conditions or factors that lead to consistant success.
In the back of my head I kind of think that some of the bakers that he met, have ways of tweaking the recipes he was given. I'm sure you have never given a recipe to someone who keeps claiming you forgot to tell them some secret ingredient.
With me it was the peanut butter fudge recipe we grew up with. 3 ingredients and you had the best creamy peanut butter fudge, sugar, buttermilk and peanutbutter. But if you cooked it <1% over or under the correct temperature you got dry crumbles or spoon fudge. The recipe was right, but the preciseness of the method is what made the fudge so great.
I keep my whole grain starter with a pinch of rye, whole wheat or spelt. So I just need to refresh it with rye. Unfortunately I can't get fresh rye only organic, so we will have to see how it goes:)
Rye by the way is one of the first things I tried and at that time there were so many things I didn't know... like how really sticky it is... I mean really, really, sticky especially to hand knead if you know what I MEAN! The volcanic discussion is here... You still have a little bit of sunday night left... I must get to bed for now! It is a good topic to visit.
http://sourdough.com/forum/topic/886
Terri
Yes I too like the stories and pictures of "Local Breads". This bread just has an additional challenge to it for me. I think I got the hydration close to what it should be but we might not ever know.
You must have a different starter strategy than I do. I just feed mine course whole wheat. When I want to make bread I take a little bit of that and do two builds to get the starter I put into the dough. 100% goes into the bread so I don't have to remember to hold a little bit back.
After re-reading the volcano topic I will give my starter another cycle. I think I want more of a Sauerteig vs Sauer starter. My starter theory is that if you don't want 4-6 different starters you feed some of what grains you want to culture to the one you have. It seems to make a more responsive starter since it contains yeasts from different grains.
Also I am using the doughball, keep it at room temp method - for my whole grain starter. When I first started to convert to this method it seemed that my starter was more beery and sour smelling. Now it doesn't matter what combination of whole spelt, rye, or wheat that I feed it - fruity - sweet overipe fruit smell is the aroma now.
I am still maintaining my oldest white "Calvel" starter which I refrigerate in two parts. One at 60-75% hydration, and one at 100-125% hydration so that they are easier to convert depending on the recipe. And they seem to have the more beery sour smell going.
So when will you be posting the recipe/formula? And Johnny that loaf looks Fab I went back to look at the crumbshot today:) Can you get rolled rye flakes?
Terri
I found some cracked organic Rye supplier online and ordered some in. Very expensive way to buy it unfortunately..
The bread of the masses... And we have to look hard to find enough fresh stuff for a decent loaf. I tried the stuff from the amish market and they have two products white rye pasty stuff and what looks to be the other parts minus the endosperm. I found neither to be right for sourdough bread. But I can get 24oz of Bob's Redmill dark organic for $1.68 U.S. And I think the rolled rye was pretty cheap I bought it a while back at an organic market.
Terri
My storage starter is a 40 gram dough ball at 50% hydration. I leave it out on the counter and feed it once a week. This is how I have been keeping my starter for the past eight months. The "flour" I feed the starter is a course grind of wheat. To me this gives my bread a sour flavor that is just right. Once a week I keep about 10 grams and add to it 10 grams of water plus 20 grams of wheat flour. Most of my breads start off with about 15 grams of starter so if I make two breads a week there is very little waste.
When I do other grain breads the first build I have used the new flour at 100% and never had a problem. This is one of other reasons why I do two builds is to get the organisms use to the new flour.
Now some questions about the rye bread. The formula has the salt at 3% which is what I did but to me it tasted like it was to much. Nobody else complained about the salt. Is it normal for rye to have this much salt? I let the bread cool for over 24 hours and the crust was tough and chewy, is this to be expected? I was wondering if I made it again about cutting the salt back to 2% and maybe adding a little olive oil.
The crumb was nice and soft with irregular holes here and there but mostly very uniformed. I was thinking that maybe raising the hydration to 90% and lowering the salt there would be better cracks but I'm not sure how it is supposed to look. I do like the nice dark brown color that I see surrounded by the while flour.
I got some buckwheat today for my next experiment.
At least to my experience you could really tell if you used american salted butter or spread on european Bread. But with unsalted butter like the locals used it tasted perfect. American Bread in comparison is bland without salted butter. But sourdough is a different story of course. I tend to go a little lite on salt since my Hubby has high blood pressure.
I can't find my book right now but is this the bread that he talks about being so huge?
Terri
This is the best rye bread I have ever made. We have a new person starting in the lab and she said this was the best bread ever. I had to laugh to myself because she doesn't know about all the bread that I make.
I shall study. Looks very fine.
This weekend I'm messing around with some Buckwheat.
Hi LeadDog
Finally got round to trying your revised version of Dan Leader's recipe.
It came out great this time after trying his version with disastrous consequences. Pictures and some discussion here: http://thepartisanbaker.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/seigle-dauvergne/
Thanks for bothering to put up a version that works.
Best wishes,
Mick
www.bethesdabakers.com
http://thepartisanbaker.wordpress.com
Hi Mick, thanks for trying out my version. That bread sounded to good not to try and figure out how to make. I did read your post and if you can edit your blog Paso Robles is spelled wrong. Other than that everything else looked good over there.
Hi LeadDog
Just Brit ignorance - I'll put it right.
I've posted the way I did it - which is more or less exactly as you described.
Mick
www.bethesdabakers.com
http://thepartisanbaker.wordpress.com
I read how you did it. Someday I'll have to try it without the Dutch Oven. The Brit ignorance is just fine. I live here and still have problems spelling the crazy names.