Rye Results

About 100 grams of sourdough starter (roughly 100% hydration, or about 50 grams of flour) plus enough rye flour and water to make for a 80% hydration dough with 500 grams of flour. And some salt. Actually I ran out of rye flour so had to pad the loaf with bread flour, whoops. Thirty minutes at 445F got the bread to about 160F internal temperature; another 15 minutes got it a little above 200F inside.

If your oven does not go up so high you'll need longer cooking times. A temperature probe to stab the bread with really helps, especially if it's the first time at the loaf, or if you are dealing with a new oven or a different environment—how humid is it?

High hydration doughs need a pan to be molded (or poured) into, which generally rules out the "steam it in a dutch oven" method, unless you can fit the whole pan into the dutch oven? Be sure to grease the pan very well as rye will adhere as if glue to the sides of an ungreased pan. Ask me how I know! Clarified butter might be good here for high temperature baking.

Probably this loaf will end up as a bread pudding or used as a stuffing, or will be used with eggs, or in a tofu casserole. Rye flour will probably be reserved for such things as tasty tasty rye pancakes.

tags #food #bread