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Hi, I’ve been making NK bread for a few months now (without fail every week) with both my sourdough starter and my store bought active dry yeast. They’ve always turned out delicious, with quite a bit of rise, the perfect crust and everyone loves them. However, i must say i am completely miffed by the Rye NK recipe. I’ve tried it twice and both times, after the proof, i’ve just ended with a very sticky gooey dough which i couldn’t proceed with. What am i doing wrong? I am not using Molasses, my ratio has been 3/4 cup rye + 2 1/4 cup bread flour, 1 1/2 cup water. My Sourdough starter is fed a 50-50 by weight ratio of bread flour + whole wheat flour… but even with yeast, i had the same result. What am i missing? Any help/suggestions would be really appreciated!
Thanks
I should have read the comment above before proceeding. Not sure what I did wrong either. I used sourdough starter instead of yeast, but a 1/4 cup as Eric suggests when substituting starter for yeast. After the first proofing, which did go longer than expected (22 hrs), this dough is a sticky mess. I kept on adding more flour just so I could handle it to get it into the proofing basket. I must of used at least another 1/2 cup of flour when trying to form it (which still wasn’t enough) and lost about 1/2 cup of dough on my fingers and pastry scraper. So far this has been my worst experience in making NK bread. I will be really upset if I have to throw this away.
@Fermentada Melissa, you know what’s crazy? I didn’t even know there was an alternative rye bread recipe on the site! All I did was mark up Eric’s recipe I printed out and made those changes, all the time thinking they were my changes! So apparently “Leah’s Reminiscent Rye”, in actuality, is Joe’s No Knead Rye, kinda/sorta! LOL!
Leah
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My guess is that 22 hours is much, much too long to bulk ferment the dough. It is probably too long for any dough (at room temp), but especially for one with a significant proportion of rye, regardless of whether you prove on the counter or in the fridge. If rye ferments too long the structure begins to break down. That is probably why you got a gooey mess. This account from “The Rye Baker” might help explain what happened. http://theryebaker.com/on-retarding-rye-doughs/
Incidentally I made the Artisan Sourdough Rye (the Breadtopia recipe) yesterday, and it turned out really well. That loaf is 1/2 rye, 1/2 bread or AP flour. I mixed the dough yesterday morning, bulk fermented for about 10-11 hours, did a second proof of 1 1/2 hours, and baked it last night.
Here’s a pic of the 50% rye I made yesterday, using just a 10-11 hour bulk ferment and 1 1/2 hour 2nd proof. Again, this isn’t “Joe’s No-Knead Rye” but rather the Artisan Sourdough Rye with orange zest, fennel, and caraway. It’s practically no-knead.
Thanks Susan. You’re rye loaf looks great.
Rye is different that regular wheat. Amylases in rye flour can break down dough structure, inhibiting it from rising. Acidification is usually used to modify the amylase action in rye. This recipe has no acid, therefore a long fermentation would be more conducive
to this break down.
Just had a marvelous experience with this recipe, and I did watch both the videos, and glad I did! This bread is a gift for a Polish-American friend’s 70th birthday so it had to be perfect. Thanks for the terrific videos. Wish I could cut into it…
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I was a little leery making this bread after reading some of the other reviews. It turned out beautiful! Tasty crispy crust and perfect inside. Weigh ingredients. It is a wet dough! It was rising fast so after 2 hours finished the rise overnight in refridge. Let come to room temp for an hour before removing from bowl, deflated, folded, let rest. Let rise 2nd time in banneton (lots of rice flour on liner). Baked in EH cloche that had been preheated an hour at 500. Turned down oven to 475. Let bake 30 minutes covered and finished off 10 minutes uncovered. Great recipe *****