4 ms·

Or you could also learn how to make mixed 4/3 rye/wheat sourdough with a natural starter, which requires no scheduling at all. Just mix it in the morning and pu

by jwr 7y ago

Or you could also learn how to make mixed 4/3 rye/wheat sourdough with a natural starter, which requires no scheduling at all. Just mix it in the morning and put it in the oven some time in the late afternoon/evening. I've been doing it for years and it's the only kind of bread that I can make on a regular basis. It's something you can actually do daily, not an additional hobby. Ingredients: * 400g full-grain rye flour * 300g wheat flour * 10-15g salt * 600ml water * 50-80g levain starter (rye based) mix, wait 6-8h, bake at 210C for 1h05. This is a very popular kind of bread in Poland, while I found that in the US people don't really know what to do with full-grain rye flour. I've read books that said it can only be used to make dark pumpernickel breads, and I never found the recipe above (or similar) in any bread-baking books I've read. Also, the rye starter is fairly stable, forgiving and easy to maintain in a fridge.

i_am_proteus 7y ago
Most of my breads use a mixture of rye and wheat with a wheat sourdough. I'll have to give the rye sourdough a try. Finding rye at retail stores in the USA is very difficult. I have to order mine directly from a mill.
- jwr 7y ago
  Yes, when I was in the US I used to order "Hodgson Mill Organic Rye Flour, 30-Ounce (Pack of 6)" through Amazon sellers, and later had trouble getting the stuff. The organic version was better than non-organic. It's difficult to get because nobody knows how to use it :-)
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  FWIW, if you're in Minnesota, it's in every Cub Foods supermarket. Then again, Minneapolis is AKA the Mill City!
- scruple 7y ago
  We do rye and wheat sourdough at home, as well. Prior to the lockdowns I had no problem finding 5 pound bags of wheat flour and 3 pound bags of rye flour. Now, though... Can't even find it online.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Huh. I was just at the local Asian grocery. Piles of bags in the back.
    - scruple 7y ago
      I honestly hadn't thought to look for it at any of our nearby Asian grocery stores. We used to frequent our local H Mart, Zion Market, and 99 Ranch, but have been sticking to our more immediate grocery store for the past 4 weeks, or so. I'm due to restock kimchi soon anyway, thanks for the suggestion.
buckminster 7y ago
What sort of container are you using for the rise/bake? I use a similar low-effort recipe for focaccia but I find it tends to stick to the tin.
- jwr 7y ago
  I use glass, and the dough sticks like crazy. What I do is press a sheet of baking paper into the container, then pour into that. Quick and practical. Given the number of questions, I think I should write up a quick manual on practical bread baking, submit it to HN, and watch it get noticed by no one :-)
  - buckminster 7y ago
    Cheers. I'm currently putting extra oil down the sides just before baking. This works pretty well but creates a loaf that's somewhat greasy to the touch. It tastes OK though.
MegaDeKay 7y ago
Nice! A couple questions for you... - to clarify, is the "wheat flour" whole wheat or white? If the latter, all-purpose or high protein "bread" flour? - do you think it makes much of a difference if the levain is rye based? My understanding is that if the amount of levain is small relative to the overall amount of flour in a rye-based bread like this, it doesn't much matter fermentation-wise. I've read that rye flour in North America isn't as good a quality as that in Europe. This makes me sad. I grind my own rye berries, but it would be nice if I had the opportunity some time to try your stuff. And let me go out on a limb with one more question. Many years ago, our grocery store in a town with a heritage in eastern Europe sold a loaf of bread called "heavy rye bread". It was made of a fine flour, was quite dark, and was super tough to chew. I have never had a bread like it since and I have looked hard. It wasn't sourdough like a Borodinski bread, nor was it coarse like Scandanavian rye breads. Perhaps you might know of this bread?
- jwr 7y ago
  The wheat flour is white wheat flour, the most common all-purpose kind. Don't worry too much about the protein, this bread will not develop lots of gluten strands anyway. You do want to mix it quite a bit, if possible, and you will get some gluten, but nothing like with white bread. I think the levain should be rye-based, but I do not have data to back that up. Never tried anything different. As to the quality of rye flour in America, the organic one from Hodgson Mill was good and very comparable to what I use in Poland. The non-organic one less so. I think the dark bread you described resembles a pumpernickel, but I'm not sure. I never liked pumpernickel much. Oh, I forgot one important thing in the US: the water in your tap! If it's chemical plant waste like in many places, it can't be used for bread baking. Specifically, if it's chlorinated, you might get away with keeping some in a jar waiting for the chlorine to evaporate. But if chloramines are used (like in San Diego, for example), you're screwed. I had to buy a good activated carbon water filter before I could bake bread in San Diego. I think it's a good idea anyway.
war1025 7y ago
Rye flour is vastly under-appreciated in my opinion. Love that stuff. For a lot of things you can't really get away with fully replacing wheat flour, but you can usually do half / half with good results. I haven't made sourdough for a few years, but I think I was either doing 1 : 1 : 1 (white, wheat, rye) or 2 : 1 : 1. Also, the easiest way to create a sourdough culture is literally just mix rye flour and water in roughly equal parts. Cover with a cloth to keep bugs out, and then dump out (our use) half each day and add in more flour and water to get back up to the original level. It's basically the most idiot-proof process I can think of. The main reason I keep getting out of the habit is that you need to monitor the thing basically daily. Otherwise you can put it in the fridge and take a bit less care of it, but then you need to build it back up for a few days before you can use it. I've always wondered if I'm just being too cautious about the starter though. I know that people have said they thrive on neglect.
- jwr 7y ago
  There is one trap when starting a culture: baking bread too early. The levain will start to rise madly after 2-5 days, but this does not mean it's ready! It needs much more time (two weeks?) to become more acidic and develop a good balance of yeast and bacteria. Once you get a good one, maintaining it is rather easy, though. Feed it every day, and if you forget for a day or two, it doesn't matter that much. It's fairly abuse-proof: for years I even left a portion of dough as the levain for the next bread, which you should not do, because it contains salt (which slows the development of either yeast or bacteria, don't remember now). Everything was fine. It's all pretty magical: the levain doesn't spoil, because of the low pH. The bread also keeps for a long time (a week, easily).
eps 7y ago
Got a crumb photo? The theory goes that full-grain flours tend to inhbit gluten development, so the crumb ends up being finer-textured and the oven spring not that dramatic.
- jwr 7y ago
  This is generally true, although I mix for a long time, to develop gluten strands. The dough grows by about 30%, and the oven spring is another 10-15% on top of that.

by jwr 7y ago

i_am_proteus 7y ago

Most of my breads use a mixture of rye and wheat with a wheat sourdough. I'll have to give the rye sourdough a try. Finding rye at retail stores in the USA is very difficult. I have to order mine directly from a mill.

jwr 7y ago
Yes, when I was in the US I used to order "Hodgson Mill Organic Rye Flour, 30-Ounce (Pack of 6)" through Amazon sellers, and later had trouble getting the stuff. The organic version was better than non-organic. It's difficult to get because nobody knows how to use it :-)
HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
FWIW, if you're in Minnesota, it's in every Cub Foods supermarket. Then again, Minneapolis is AKA the Mill City!
scruple 7y ago
We do rye and wheat sourdough at home, as well. Prior to the lockdowns I had no problem finding 5 pound bags of wheat flour and 3 pound bags of rye flour. Now, though... Can't even find it online.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Huh. I was just at the local Asian grocery. Piles of bags in the back.
  - scruple 7y ago
    I honestly hadn't thought to look for it at any of our nearby Asian grocery stores. We used to frequent our local H Mart, Zion Market, and 99 Ranch, but have been sticking to our more immediate grocery store for the past 4 weeks, or so. I'm due to restock kimchi soon anyway, thanks for the suggestion.

buckminster 7y ago

What sort of container are you using for the rise/bake? I use a similar low-effort recipe for focaccia but I find it tends to stick to the tin.

jwr 7y ago
I use glass, and the dough sticks like crazy. What I do is press a sheet of baking paper into the container, then pour into that. Quick and practical. Given the number of questions, I think I should write up a quick manual on practical bread baking, submit it to HN, and watch it get noticed by no one :-)
- buckminster 7y ago
  Cheers. I'm currently putting extra oil down the sides just before baking. This works pretty well but creates a loaf that's somewhat greasy to the touch. It tastes OK though.

MegaDeKay 7y ago

Nice! A couple questions for you... - to clarify, is the "wheat flour" whole wheat or white? If the latter, all-purpose or high protein "bread" flour? - do you think it makes much of a difference if the levain is rye based? My understanding is that if the amount of levain is small relative to the overall amount of flour in a rye-based bread like this, it doesn't much matter fermentation-wise. I've read that rye flour in North America isn't as good a quality as that in Europe. This makes me sad. I grind my own rye berries, but it would be nice if I had the opportunity some time to try your stuff. And let me go out on a limb with one more question. Many years ago, our grocery store in a town with a heritage in eastern Europe sold a loaf of bread called "heavy rye bread". It was made of a fine flour, was quite dark, and was super tough to chew. I have never had a bread like it since and I have looked hard. It wasn't sourdough like a Borodinski bread, nor was it coarse like Scandanavian rye breads. Perhaps you might know of this bread?

jwr 7y ago
The wheat flour is white wheat flour, the most common all-purpose kind. Don't worry too much about the protein, this bread will not develop lots of gluten strands anyway. You do want to mix it quite a bit, if possible, and you will get some gluten, but nothing like with white bread. I think the levain should be rye-based, but I do not have data to back that up. Never tried anything different. As to the quality of rye flour in America, the organic one from Hodgson Mill was good and very comparable to what I use in Poland. The non-organic one less so. I think the dark bread you described resembles a pumpernickel, but I'm not sure. I never liked pumpernickel much. Oh, I forgot one important thing in the US: the water in your tap! If it's chemical plant waste like in many places, it can't be used for bread baking. Specifically, if it's chlorinated, you might get away with keeping some in a jar waiting for the chlorine to evaporate. But if chloramines are used (like in San Diego, for example), you're screwed. I had to buy a good activated carbon water filter before I could bake bread in San Diego. I think it's a good idea anyway.

war1025 7y ago

Rye flour is vastly under-appreciated in my opinion. Love that stuff. For a lot of things you can't really get away with fully replacing wheat flour, but you can usually do half / half with good results. I haven't made sourdough for a few years, but I think I was either doing 1 : 1 : 1 (white, wheat, rye) or 2 : 1 : 1. Also, the easiest way to create a sourdough culture is literally just mix rye flour and water in roughly equal parts. Cover with a cloth to keep bugs out, and then dump out (our use) half each day and add in more flour and water to get back up to the original level. It's basically the most idiot-proof process I can think of. The main reason I keep getting out of the habit is that you need to monitor the thing basically daily. Otherwise you can put it in the fridge and take a bit less care of it, but then you need to build it back up for a few days before you can use it. I've always wondered if I'm just being too cautious about the starter though. I know that people have said they thrive on neglect.

jwr 7y ago
There is one trap when starting a culture: baking bread too early. The levain will start to rise madly after 2-5 days, but this does not mean it's ready! It needs much more time (two weeks?) to become more acidic and develop a good balance of yeast and bacteria. Once you get a good one, maintaining it is rather easy, though. Feed it every day, and if you forget for a day or two, it doesn't matter that much. It's fairly abuse-proof: for years I even left a portion of dough as the levain for the next bread, which you should not do, because it contains salt (which slows the development of either yeast or bacteria, don't remember now). Everything was fine. It's all pretty magical: the levain doesn't spoil, because of the low pH. The bread also keeps for a long time (a week, easily).

eps 7y ago

Got a crumb photo? The theory goes that full-grain flours tend to inhbit gluten development, so the crumb ends up being finer-textured and the oven spring not that dramatic.

jwr 7y ago
This is generally true, although I mix for a long time, to develop gluten strands. The dough grows by about 30%, and the oven spring is another 10-15% on top of that.