Use & Purpose of Rye Flower

Rye flour has very good flavour, so that would be a major reason to add it. It does also seem to speed up the process, adding vigour to the rise.

I would say that timing and temperature are the keys to achieving the sourness you're after, more so than the type of flour. There's a lot of info here and on The Fresh Loaf if you want to do a search - it's a very frequently discussed topic.

I sometimes use rye flour to give a diastatic boost to some of my other diastaticly weaker flours.  I also throw a little into my levain build.  Especially lately.  Also, it does tend to sour quicker, compared to either whole wheat or white.

I don't disagree with rye starters being more sour, but I think the reason is that because they are more active, they progress towards the acid much more quickly than a wheat starter - ie, if you allow a wheat starter to progress to the same stage it will also be sour.

I add rye between 5 and 25% to most of my sourdough. The kids like less, I like more, so it varies depending on who I am trying to please!

The sourness may be to do with the activity, but I think if you just taste raw rye, you get a slightly sour taste that is presumably just the rye flavour, quite apart from the acidity that the increased acitivity produces. I love the flavour of rye. Reminds me of the 70s and my hippy sisters eating ryvita bikkies with ricotta cheese.

I like to dust my banettons with rye flour, whatever the flour mix in the bread (ie including all white wheat flour bread).

I use wholemeal stoneground rye, which includes some pretty chunky bits as well as finer components. I once bought really fine rye that seemed to not have been wholemeal, and whilst it tasted OK the texture of thre bread was ordinary.

Rye has practically (or maybe it's entirely?) no gluten, which is why it's harder to get it to rise and be airy. Also why if you are adding it, go in steps, don't leap into a 70% rye straight from all-wheat.

Rye takes a little more water than wheat flour, and does go sticky! Best way for me to handle higher rye % doughs is to use wet hands. For 100% rye which I've made a few times, I've used olive oil and you don't really knead it - it's like trying to knead toothpaste - you basically mix and shape it. But you can knead it at 70% wholemeal trye - I've done it, anyway.

HI Southwesterly, adding the salt later is a process called autolyse. Salt slows the development of gluten so when you add it later you allow the flour to take up the water and develop gluten more quickly. I just bring together my starter, water and flour and mix roughly then leave it in the bowl for 20 to 30 minutes. I then add the salt and do my initial knead. You can actually feel the difference in the dough - it's springier and more developed than if you add the salt at the start.

Old Possum, I agree with your comment on the springiness of the dough, which seems to persist in the crumb texture of the finished bread, when the salt is added at a later stage.  One thing I am not clear on is why salt is needed in bread at all, other than for taste, which I suppose is a good enough reason, although I suspect there is also another reason.  However, those on a reduced salt diet may wish to minimise the salt in bread.  I have not yet tried baking a loaf with no salt, to see what would happen, but may have to do so to satisfy my curiosity.

I too am interested in the salt question, though here is what I have gathered, rightly or wrongly, precisely or imprecisely:

a) clearly there is a flavour factor. If you doubt this, taste a salt free loaf. Which is not bad necessarily - as people in Northern Italy, especially Tuscans, will attest, but it is quite different.

b) salt provides a challenge to the fermentation cultures and

c) also delays phytic acid breakdown if you are soaking grains, seeds, nuts (probably same as b )

d) also possibly reduces water retention of grain since salt retains water itself, hence possibly its effect on retarding gluten development?

e) salt's water retention properties mean also that a salt free loaf dries out much faster after baking, which is why many commercial loaves, even organic health food types (mass produced varieties) can have up to 10% salt content (disguised with mucho sugar and other sweeteners, oils etc.).

As to the original rye query, I'll weigh in my two cents here:

Rye has a different enzymatic profile which breaks down quicker than most other bread flours (amylase quotient?) which means that it will sour faster as the fermentation is more rapid. It appears also that a rye-based starter will also be more vigourous when introduced into a wheat or spelt loaf, though confess have not done side-by-side comparisons, always the way to answer such questions. I have noticed the following though:

Rye starters are vigourous and flavourful even when in wheat and spelt loaves.

Spelt starters produce less rise but have a pleasant sweet undertone especially interesting in blended starters.

Whole wheat starters tend to create wetter, flatter loaves (for me at least) unless the starter is low hydration, something which I personally don't like fussing with but I gather many other accomplished bakers do (desem style starters). My suspicion is that generally speaking whole wheat starters really are best with around 65% hydration levels or lower and would be curious to learn from others who have experimented with this in more depth, and also why. Personally I just don't use whole wheat starters any more.

White starters are sweeter, vigorous and create delicious white sourdoughs, though personally have never tried them with dark loaves.

I have found my stone ground rye (from LaMilanaise) gives better flavour in a blended loaf than their rye which I then fresh grind. However, though I cannot prove anything, am convinced that fresh ground rye makes a much better starter. Certainly it looks and tastes better. I also believe it is good to start each new 'mother' with minimal amount of previous starter in order to keep as youthful a population in any given batch. If I am making 500g starter I have only about 2g left in the bowl for example, i.e. just scrapings, nothing more.

Furthermore I have been experimenting with slower and slower preparation cycles meaning I am using less and less initial starter and am finding that the flavours are no less rich, sometimes more so. Again this means that the population in the dough about to be baked is largely young, i.e. grew in this particular dough rather than being imported from earlier mother. I am now using about a tenth as much starter as I used to a year ago and have extended the prep period from 12-18 hours to 24-30 hours. I think there is something to the notion of using the minimum amount of yeast/starter possible in order to slowly develop more flavour.

In any case, if you want a simple, relatively foolproof all-purpose starter, I highly recommend fresh-ground or stone ground rye. It works. It makes delicious bread with all flour types.

is especially important in the rye fermentation process, to prevent the dreaded "starch attack".

CaperAsh, thanks for that terrific contribution - much to digest there. 

I wish I had access to fresh- or stone-ground rye (or fresh ground flour of any kind). I doubt that I will ever have my own stone grinder - the cost is not so prohibitive, but I suspect that if finding anything unusual flour-wise is already difficult, then sourcing a reliable supply of various raw grains would be astronomically so.

That gives me encouragement, yes I should be more open to that possibility. I will keep my eyes open.

I'm lucky that in Melbourne we have ready access to some very high quality flours from Laucke Mills in South Australia - their organic unbleached white and wholemeal flours are excellent. So it's more the other grains and flours which can be tricky to source, and supply seems to fluctuate.

It really surprises me there's not a bigger market here and that someone doesn't wrap it up. The only diversified supply is targetted at the bread machine market, but those flours always come preformulated, so not much use for sourdough.

Hi mozzie

I actually went down to Leo's in Hartwell on Friday night for the first time and saw their range of flours, though it's not the flours which did the fatal damage to my wallet, more the mind boggling range of gourmet enticements - which are clearly impossible to resist by the state of our shopping trolley! I did pick up a couple of kilos of No Knead "100% Rye" (whatever that means - it's certainly not whole meal).

Most of my flour supplies come from Nick's Nuts in South Blackburn, and the occasional trek to Hindustan Imports in Dandenong, who have by far the best range and prices. But even there you can't always find what you want, either out of stock or something really unusual. I'm about to run out of barley flour, and it's not worth a trip that far for one item. I have made forays as far as Brunswick in the other direction, with less success than I would have liked. 

Your suggestion of raiding some of the bread shops is a good one, and something I haven't tried yet.

Edit: Yes, I keep meaning to go and have a look at The Mixing Bowl, Old Possum... thanks for the reminder.