I am new to baking and am trying to do a sourdough rye from scratch. I followed a website instructions, similar to those found on this site, to get the starter, and seemed to do pretty well, getting a moussy, fruity smelling consistency. I am still working on the stater. I tried my first loaf after five days, using about a cup and a half of starter, 3 cups of stone round rye, a bit more than a cup and half of water (because my dough seemed too gritty with only a cup and a half). I mixed this with a hand mixer, probably over mixing it, and shaped it on a ceramic baking "stone" which I left to rise for 24 hours. I preheated my oven at 400 degrees, popped a pot over the loaf and threw the non preheated stone and loaf in the oven, taking the pot off after about 40 minutes. I baked it another 20 to 30 minutes, until the loaf temp was 210 degrees. I ended up with a very thick crusted, dense, tightly crumbed loaf, that had was hard to cut (sort of like sawing with effort, but had a chewy, very pleasant flavor. I am anxious to know what I might do to improve on these methods.
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Hello DVTO2,
I think that you will find that 100% rye is a bit of a challenge. It is usually made at fairly high hydration and the dough is very porrigey and the loaves need to be tinned to provide support for the rise. It also doesn't need much in the way of kneading because of the low gluten content of rye.
You also really need to pre-heat the stone with the oven to get the benefit of the heat storage that it provides and putting it in cold would have delayed the start of baking more than somewhat. I suspect, that and the resultant long baking time was what gave you the thick tough crust.
Hope this helps and good luck with your projects.
Farinam
How much hydration would you expect to need? Pumpernikel is typically made with 100% rye.
Hi DVTO2,
My experience with pumpernickel is a bit limited. But I was involved with making some 100% rye bread a while back and I am pretty sure that the hydration was at least 90-95%.
As I said, the dough was pretty porrigey and the gave it minumum working before tinniing it followed by a long bake at relatively low temperature. Unfortunately, I did not make detailed notes at the time so I am relying a bit on memory.
Hope this helps.
Farinam