"Dark" or "Black" colour to rye bread

This is really interesting reading, thanks for posting this :)

I think I'll give this formula a go for my next rye baking adventure

A few questions:

I bake in a fairly large tin (3,3 l ), usually I use about 2kg rye dough for one tin. Could you give me an estimate for how long a loaf that size would have to be in the oven with this formula? Would it have to be baked at a lower temperature?

Is kibbled rye grains similar to chopped or cracked rye grains? Can I use a whole meal rye flour with a fine/medium texture, not a 'mealy' one (the extractionrate is around 100)?

Rye is very cheap and easy to come by in Denmark (for organic flour wheat and rye is about the same price, with graham flour even being more expensive than rye), but we don't have many varieties, just whole, chopped and cracked grains and one type of rye flour (fine, 100% extraction).

Danubian ( I wonder what your real name is now?) Maybe we should interview you for my blog?)
Ninas rye is so good, and again any help learning this fantastic flour is great for all!
Danubian, I was meaning to ask about an old stale bread added as a soaker would do the same thing? I read and have tried some formulas where the old bread is added in like pumpernickel? Would it have the same effects as the grains?

Jeremy

Danubian,
Ok that will do? As for my site take a look, I interviewed Graham amongst others, chefs, bakers etc...If you have a chance listen and you would understand what the site is about!
The German sourdough forums are great, if not for the language barrier the great bread porn! Have you seen Dan Lepards site?
I wonder if you have tried using tritacale flour? It's a hybrid of wheat and rye! I have used it in some loaves, I want to give it a whirl with your first loaf you posted on the forum and see what it does?
The weather here is atrocious, global warming and city dwelling!

Jeremy

Boris,
Sounds Russian, oh there Danub-ian!
My dad lived close to the source of the Danube in Allgau!
I am doing a school formula of a levain, primarily white flour with about a 5% whole wheat, I think I will fiddle with the percentages and add in some of the tritacle in place of the bread flour? Will seen!
The other day I made some baguettes with some pre-fermented brotchen dough I had left in the fridge, I want to go back to sourdough, different feel than yeasted bread entirely, yeasted is too dunno how to say it spongy?? ( bad choice of words maybe?)

Well all the best and happy baking!

Jeremy
P.S. Next week I have another baking interview coming up....keeping it a secret!

Actually my Dad was a transplanted American artist, moved back to Europe after the second world war, he was a second generation russian-american , when he won a Fulbright scholarship for art he moved to Paris to study and met my Mom! That is how we ended up being born in europe, my sister and I in Germany and my brother in Paris!
I want to go to lots of bakeries for tasting and hopefully stealing with my eye's and ears!
I can say I am not a purist either though I am of the mind that all bread making is essentially and I mean, fermentation, is a raising method, all other process's within parameters give different results,hopefully all good!

Cheers!
jeremy

Thanks for your help Danubian.
[quote="Danubian"]
Yes, "kibbled" means "cracked" so you're on the right track. Yes again, your "wholemeal rye" may be very similar to "rye meal" we use in Australia, except the one I use has coarse bran shell material, of course these differences shouldn't be a problem. I've made this with medium high extraction rye also.
[/quote]
Ah, that sounds a lot like my flour, it's fine but with some coarse bran. Great

@Jeremy: thanks for praising my recipe. I'm not all that pleased with it though, seams like the more I've learned about refreshing my sourdough, the harder it has been for me to make Danish ryebread. >_<
I'm working on a different recipe, but it's very hard to find good recipes for Danish ryebread, they're filled with obscene amounts of yeast, food coloring, white flour and what have you. (Not that I'm hostile to white flour, but the basis of rye bread should be RYE.) The few decent recipes I can find uses a big amount of sourdough straight from the fridge, a method I've used in the past but found to be somewhat unreliable, because you never know how active your sourdough is, and if it's been in the fridge for some time you get a lot of acidity and not so pleasant smells in your preferment before it has even fermented. But now I'm babbling.
The thing is, since the art of creating a good ryebread seems almost lost in Denmark, it's great to have the opportunity to learn from other cultures, and professionals with lots of rye experience.

Nina,
I didn't lie, it was a nice loaf you made, as per your request for a rye bread http://groups.google.com/group/rec.food ... 95e77c900e
Don't know if this is the real thing? Tell me what you think!

Jeremy

Danubian,

I'm very surprised about your [url=http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b317/plutrach/Blackrye032.jpg]formula[/url]..DP!
What's that? Dough..??
Seems to be something analog to our german "Teigausbeute" , never read about before.

btw..just two thoughts
"kibbled rye grain"..in case of this formila in Germany moth used material is very poorly shredded grain, with a high contingent og unshredded grain.
Due to a distinct black color (ok..darkbrown) the "soaker" sometimes will be cooked at low temperature over a long time

[quote="Jeremy"]http://groups.google.com/group/rec.food ... 95e77c900e
Don't know if this is the real thing? Tell me what you think!

Jeremy[/quote]
Jeremy, thanks for the link. Both recipes in that post looks good, and a lot better than what you generally find in (Danish) cooking books and on the internet. The first one has too little rye flour and too many seeds for my taste though. And too many grains for the taste of my 4-year-old . (I am also not crazy about the 'just scrape off the mold'-part of the sourdough instructions, ick ).
She gives a good description of baking the loaf, which in my opinion is the hardest thing to get right with these sorts of bread.
So I'd say a good resource for baking Danish ryebread, but the technique is more interesting than the actual recipes

Hello Danubian (Boris?),
thx for reply, I really never heard or read about "Dough Yield", I'm on wire (Internet) since 1986..
..not for baking, but transferring information.
I've just googled with yahoo..what Do I find?

[i]Gottfried Spicher1 and Eckhard Rabe1
(1) Bundesforschungsanstalt für Getreide- und Kartoffelverarbeitung, Schützenberg 12, D-4930 Detmold, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Received: 8 September 1982
Summary The influence of sourdough consistency (dough yield) on the development of homo- and heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria was investigated. With decreasing firmness of the sourdough acid production is more or less reduced. The production of lactic and acetic acid does not follow this change to the same degree. Upon decreasing firmness of the sourdough with ldquosourdough bacteriardquo a greater or lesser change of the lactic acid-/acetic acid-relation resp. of the fermentation quotient tabes place. This is caused by a greater reduction in the production of acetic acid.[/i]
Good old Detmold
Ok..RIP

[quote="Danubian"]Cooking may deactivate the starch degrading enzymes..[/quote]
It do not may..it definitly will do!
All you is right, I spoke of sometimes..I meant some special bakeries in two districs in NRW, Germany, Rheinland and Münsterland. Some selected versions of "Rheinisches Schwarzbrot/Schrotbrot" or "Westfälisches Schwarzbrot/Schrotbrot" are made with cooked coerse, grain or something else, cooked so long until it becomes dark, very very dark. It will caramelize, very strong caramelize, for colour and aroma. The resulting crume is no solid one, it will dissolve into tears of crume when tackeled too strong. But it tastes unbelievable.
I often begged for a discreet formula, no chance, they are all family secrets.
Perhaps I must play Tomb Raider to learn solving such problems

Pardon for stumbling in here, I only post for colour, concerning [i][b]"Dark" or "Black" colour[/b][/i], I'm an absolutely fan of
My intent of joining "der-sauerteig" sometimes ago was the hope of being told to bake following sort of bread:
> 90% rye, whole grain, 100% course/meal
dark like an espresso ground
no tin, free!
no additions like molasses e.t.c., only meal, water, rye
It's possible, I can bye it on several market places

Second form of cooking is cooking the whole bread in tins within steam at about 120 degrees of celsius for about 20 to 30 hours..Pumpernickel.
Soma couple of people doesn't like it..too sticky, too compact ..if your are unused..like some heavy stónes within stomach

Just making an observation here. When I was in Bavaria a couple of months ago, I stayed with a close friend of mines. I mentioned to her about where I could find pumpernickel. She told me that pumpernickel is not common in her area. I visited several bakeries near or around her neighborhood, and I didn't see pumpernickel being sold. When I mentioned about finding pumpernickel to her family, they all said "bleecch." They were not crazy about it. When I was observing the breads in the bakeries that I visited, most of the breads were a light or golden brown..almost to dark brown color rye breads. I never once saw dark or black color rye breads. I did find pumpernickel bread in a grocery store, and it was package (sealed in plastic). I bought one, and when I tasted it....bleeech. It's an acquired taste. I think one might find pumpernickel in the Northern area of Germany, and if you do find it, it's most likely commercially made....though there might be a very small number of bakeries in that area making it.

[quote="Doughman"]... When I mentioned about finding pumpernickel to her family, they all said "bleecch." ....[/quote]
Exactly...
Doughman, I was born near Cologne, as nearly all my ancestors. Blackbread is a myth. My Dad told me to eat it, good for teeth. He himself sometimes cut a thin slice of it and made a sandwich. Uspide the good side of a white bun, inbetween some ham or cheese, and blackbread down side to show me how to stay healthy.

Blackbread baked in the Rhineland area is fine... for a few people. Pumpernickl is different: black as hell, dense as hell, sticky as hell, sour as hell. I lived in several parts of Germany. Cologne, Mainz and Wiesbaden, Berlin, Frankfurt and now more in the western outback . I never met people who liked Pumpernickel. You can find it in the supermarkets in the lowest shelves. Always an industrial product. Don' t ask of the nature of the sour or the colour! A full list of the ingredients would be an information overload for all of us

Well, my fear is, if you try pumpernickel and think this is the typical German bread you will never come to rye again. Trust me. A proper made mixed flour rye is delicious. Even if you are accustomed to sweet wheat!

Michael

Michael?
Do you think that industrialization and lost practice has made pumpernickel a lousy loaf? I know here in the US, our idea of that bread is a molasses colored Jewish rye, or if you are lucky to try one the famous silverbell Ukranian version a black looking round loaf with a paper silver bell baked into the loaf! Without the help of homebaker's interest we wouldn't know what some of these breads really were or are? I like those whole grain slow cooked breads, Dan Lepard has a version of a Swedish black bread, what a taste, especially with some good gravlax! Schmeckt gut!

Jeremy

Jeremy

Only thing I could say is: living in this country for 44 years I never had a Pumpernickel I wanted to be recalled. Perhaps in the days of old... who knows? I just read a gouvernment statistic. In the seventies each German - beeing a toothless baby or an old toothless dinosaur - , devoured some 130 kg grain a year! Today it's something about 70 kg. This is a lot, even for a European. But it shows something ugly. Our bread had changed a lot.

If it was a well made hybrid loaf I wouldn't do any homybaking at all. But artificial soured straight doughs... And I never bought my bread in the supermarked. Even as I was a poor student!

In Denmark pumpernickel is very rare, I've only ever seen the industrial plastic wrapped product. My husband likes to eat it from time to time, but I haven't had the guts to try it yet
Dark ryebread on the other hand is very common, I don't know any Danes who don't eat it. A lot of people eat it on a daily basis, usually at lunchtime as open sandwitches. Surpricingly it's very hard to buy a GOOD dark ryebread though, not that what the supermarkets and bakers sell are that bad (though some of it IS bad!), it's just not very good either.
Me, hubby and my 4-year-old daughter goes though a loaf or two a week, depending on size and whether we eat it for dinner or just lunch. (Dark rye is GREAT for dinner with fried eggs or omelette, and also with fried meatballs ("frikadeller") and pickeled cucumber).
Sometimes I crumble a slice of dark rye over my yoghurt and sprinkle with some muscovado sugar, very yummy breakfast!

Found a few pics of danish ryebreads:
http://www.aarstiderne.com/upload/20050 ... 540126.jpg
http://www.danish-deli-food.com/images/R0117.jpg
http://www.rvh.dk/data/images/RugbroedAlm.org..jpg
And some open sandwiches, "smørrebrød":
http://www.copenhagenet.dk/Images/Sandwiches.gif

[quote="Doughman"]When I was in Bavaria a couple of months ago..I did find pumpernickel bread in a grocery store, and it was package (sealed in plastic).[/quote]
1. Bavaria isn't the first address for pumpernickel
2. Pumpernickel is always packeged, in plastified metal or metalized plastic or metalboxes.
3. Most people hate pumpernickel, as I told above, when I was a young boy I hated it , too.

Pumpernickel is [b]one[/b] way of creating a very dark rye bread, only one.
Bakeries baking original pumpernickel are very rare, the two most famous are [url=http://www.enking.de/110.html]Enking[/url] in Emsland and [url=http://www.pumpernickel-original.de/shop/index.htm]Haverland[/url] in Münsterland (Westflaia, eldest commercial pumpernickel-bakery, since 1570).
Both bakeries use only local grown up rye, shredded by themselves. And Water, no sourdough, no salt, fermenting and souring spontaneously.
----

Many more people like "Schwarzbrot" (black bread), it's made of "Schrot" (shredded rye, same as pumpernickel", water, salt, sourdough, dark coloured malt. Sometimes supplemented by yeast and/or molasses, "hard core" bakeries as Kelzenberger or Huppertz don't add.
So it looks:

[img]http://www.schwarz-brot.de/brote.jpg[/img]
even packed in plastified metal
[img]http://www.schwarz-brot.de/schuette.jpg[/img]

There are a couple of further very dark breads, one of my favorites is "Korn an Korn"(grain to grain), 80% soaked grain, rest shredded. Crumb? What's that?
[url=http://www.imagebanana.com/view/217tnvr2/Korn_an_Korn.jpg][img]http://www.imagebanana.com/img/217tnvr2/thumb/Korn_an_Korn.jpg[/img][/url]

Has anyone tried this successfully? is this the best way to make a nice black loaf?

I decided to have a go at Boris’s Sweet & Sour formula for 100% Rye. I finally sourced some organic kibbled Rye and Rye meal flour for the soaker. 

Cracked or Kibbled Rye

Rye Meal

I tried to adjust the formula posted down by thirds to just do one loaf. It’s amazing how expensive organic rye is so I did not want to experiment with 1.75kg of flour if I turned out bricks. 

I am not sure if I got the maths right or the technique for that matter, but here is what I worked out and how I made my 100% rye to bake on the weekend. 

On Wednesday night I pulled out my starter for the first build. I also mixed up the soaker and left it to soak for 24hrs.

For the soaker I used half cracked or kibbled Rye and half rye meal:

 Soaker after 24 hours

On Thursday morning I refreshed the sourdough for the second build.

2nd Preferment ready to go into the dough

Thursday night I mixed up the dough and put the covered bowl in the fridge. I did use a 1/2 teaspoon of dried yeast in the dough because I wanted to get some extra gas.

Rye dough ball

On Friday night I pulled out the dough and folded it once every hour for the first 2 hours then shaped it into a ball and let it sit seam side down for the next 3 hours. I don’t think you need to fold rye as it does not seem to make any difference. Finally I put it back into the fridge overnight.

Saturday morning I baked straight from the fridge. I use a baking stone and throw in a handful of ice cubes at the beginning to produce steam. I baked for a total of about 45-50 minutes at around 200°C.

The results: I did not get the nice mottled pattern on top I have had in the past and I am not sure why. I thought I let it prove long enough and it had risen quite well. I would have expected it to turn out a bit darker so I am wondering if I did not let it cook long enough.

I just checked Boris’s instructions and see he suggests 110 minutes at 190°C. This seems like a huge amount of time to me, but maybe it is why I did not get the dark colour I wanted. When I cut this bread 24hours later I was disappointed with the crumb. It was a bit doughy near the bottom and was much denser than I expected. However this is my first 100% Rye so maybe I am expecting too much by way of holes. The taste however was sensational, very sour and with a nice sweetness and complex flavours I loved. 

All in all I was happy with this first attempt but would love to get some feedback and some answers to questions that came up for me with this first experiment with 100% rye bread.

1. Judging by the colour & crumb did I under cook this bread?
2. With rye dough is kneading or folding a waste of time. Or do you just mix and form and let the dough prove?
3. Does 100% rye always have a closed dense crumb like this and why?
4. What determines how you get that attractive mottled lava look on the top?

Thanks,

Johnny

Johnny,

I have very limited pure rye (twice only) experience, but for the little it is worth:

Boris' recipe starter qty is very very low in the 1st build - 5% to 100% flour 100% water. I used a little more than this, but not much more. It's a long fermet time... I gather many pure ryes are left to ferment with no starter added whatever, and given many days to get their own culture going - like making a pure rye starter from scratch and baking from it directly - unless I'm reading that wrong. You list "white starter". Mine is a white/rye blend, and I am not sure but gather starters with rye in them might generally have a slightly different mix of bugs. Notwithstanding the business about (if I'm right) some rye being fermented over days with no starter actually put in - it would seem to make some sense to me to use a starter with at least some rye in it's food over a fair while - although maybe it makes no difference in the end...

I'm pretty sure diastatic malt is wasted on rye. You might want some ordinary malt for it's flavour/sugar, but the enzyme isn't needed, from what I understand.

I have used a tin, not a free form loaf - mainly so as to not deflate the thing between the prove and the bake. Also gives a nice square shape for cutting out pieces to serve with cream cheese and gravlax with a sprig of dill on top, etc! Holes in mine have been about like the top half of your loaf, maybe a tad bigger holes, but pretty similar. It's going to be pretty dense. I wonder if in placing the loaf on the stone the bottom half got a bit deflated? When you simply put the tin int he oven, there is no real chance of deflation, unless maybe you tap dance over to the oven!

Once the bread dough was mixed, it went straight into the tin to prove - no folding at all from what I recall. It's not like ordinary SD, and you aren't really developing gluten which is what the folding does. As you would no doubt appreciate - it's like managing toothpaste. My prove times were well less than my normal SD, I think i used 2.5 hours total after mixing and baked straight through (no fridge retard). No prove time is given on the recipe! Advice after the fact seemed to suggest 3 ish hrs was about right - if correct I wonder if your time and the extra fridge step might have gone a bit longer than ideal?

I baked at very high heat initially, and turned well down ( I think I ended up on 160 or so for fear of overdoing the crust) later (can't remember the exact times). Didn't go the full 110 mins, maybe 80?? I would think that 45 mins would leave it a bit gluey.