wow! This bread is fantastic. Followed Eric’s video and ingredient list as close as possible. This is my 4th NK attempt using the pineapple based SD starter, and the best to date.
Only issue (for now) is the overly dark bottom. For this last try I raised the rack to its highest point and lowered the temp by ~10 degrees, but still a little burnt on the buns. Will try parchment paper next weekend.
Thank you Eric for the great instructions and delicious recipes.
Jay
Hi Jay,
I’m curious about what type of vessel you’re baking your bread in? Metal transmits heat faster than ceramic, so a cast iron Dutch oven, for example, will be more likely to result in overly dark bottom crust than a ceramic one. In any case, many people have found that placing a cookie sheet under their baker will deflect enough heat to prevent burning the bottom of the loaf.
I’m using an Emile Henry flame clay casserole that we’ve had for many years. It is great for soups and now for breads. i will try the baking sheet suggestion next. It really came out great, good rise, excellent texture and great flavor. The bottom was not terrible, but clearly overdone.
Your bread looks pretty perfect from this angle. But do let us know if the cookie sheet technique does the trick.
Dear Eric, I learned to bake my first bread ever with your superb recipe and dummy proof instructions. It came out just perfect and is now a family staple. I thank you very much for taking the trouble to teach us so well!
I am now on a quest finding a 100% whole rye sourdough bread recipe for a free form loaf I can bake in my Roemertopf. I can only find recipes for bread in loaf tins. I also wonder whether I should try to add your artisan seeds and flavors. Is there something in the chemistry of a whole rye bread that would suggest I don’t try and experiment with this?
Thank you for your trouble, Ceeceekay
That might be in large part because 100% whole rye dough has very little gluten and does not hold its shape well at all. A free form 100% rye dough will be free to pancake out on you. If you scale the quantity of dough to fit your romertopf well, perhaps the sides of the romertopf will shore up the dough and you’ll get a decent shaped loaf.
There’s no reason not to try the seeds and flavors as you wish. There shouldn’t be any issues with the chemistry of the dough.
This weekend I tried the sourdough rye recipe. It called for 400 gr. water. Following the recipe to the letter, using a zeroed scale, I found the resulting dough to be way too wet to fold. I had to add an additional 1.5 cup of flour to get it to the consistency to be able to stretch and fold. I was afraid the result would disappoint as the additional flour missed the 14 hour cycle, but after baking, it did rise and was delicious.
The issue could be the type of flour - I bought all my flour from Breadtopia. Or it might be an error in the recipe (in the video it sounded like Eric added 200 gr water.). In any case I think I will bump up both rye and bread flour from the called for 245 gr. to 300 gr. and see what happens.
Has anyone else experienced this with the recipe?
Not sure what’s going on there. Both the video and the written recipe call for 400g water. Rye is by nature sticky and sometimes challenging to work with but it’s also only half the flour in this recipe so it shouldn’t be a the total mess you are experiencing. Besides adding more flour, maybe cut the proofing time if it’s particularly warm where you’re proofing it now.
I love the flavor and perfume of this bread! I happen to have the same Romertopf that you use (unglazed as well). My only hitch was with the baking time. I found my bread was a bit undercooked, but not by much. Sliced and toasted - yum! I was thinking this might be nice with golden raisins…
I’ve increased the flour to 275 gr for both rye and bread flour. that is about right. The dough is still sticky but manageable. I’ve used this quantity three times now with good results. I think I will bump it to 280. We love this bread. A friend from Belgium tasted it and said it was great and would go well with a cheese and fruit.
I am making this today but have cut out the anise and added golden raisins. Looking forward to the good smells coming from the oven in a few hours!
Thank you so much for this recipe. You did an amazing job teaching step by step with all the details, I watched it over and over to make sure I understood exactly what to do. I just pulled mine out of the oven and I didn’t know I could make something so beautiful. I am new to bread making and this is my first attempt with rye flour, but we love rye bread so I wanted to try. I didn’t have a proofing basket so I just used a bowl and cut up an old cotton dress shirt, floured it for the proofing and it worked fine. I also didn’t have the same clay item you used to bake it in but I did have a clay pot from a clay slow cooker I have so I just used that. I did find the dough very wet and hard to fold at the end but it still came out great. I don’t even want to cut into it because it looks so beautiful. Thanks again. I will be watching more videos.
Hey all! I’ve been working on a rye sourdough starter that I started with some of Breadtopia’s San Fransisco starter by adding rye flour. I find that it is somewhat thicker than my regular starter but smells quite interesting with lots of layers to its scent. Question - can I use rye starter in this recipe and if so, do I have to adjust the hydration? Thanks!
Sure, a rye starter is fine. No adjustment in hydration is necessary.
Thanks! I know what I’ll be starting this evening!!!
Until just a few months ago, I’m not sure I’d ever baked anything in my life. But I learned how to create a sourdough starter (100 % whole wheat), and my family and I are really enjoying the fresh sourdoughs we’ve had. This rye is one of our favorites. But the dough’s stickiness and wetness makes it a challenge to handle. I’ve followed this recipe exactly, and the dough won’t really hold its shape on my countertop.
I’ve seen here that reducing the water in the recipe is one way to make the dough more manageable. I have two questions pertaining to that:
How much would you recommend reducing the water?
What kind of difference, if any, should I expect in the final product with reduced water?
Thanks for any input!
It’s hard to answer those questions since it’s going to vary for different people and different times. Variables like moisture in the flour, room temperature and humidity all influence the consistency of the dough over its proofing period. I think it’s just one of those things you have to experiment with and learn from experience.
Had a starter die a while back. Made a new one and tried this recipe after it was only a few days old. I didn’t have anise or an orange but I’ll get them for next time. The only thing I did differently was the flour. I kept the rye measurement, but did almost all whole wheat instead of white. I had a few reasons for this and was worried it would weight it down or that the whole grain would need more time to ferment. I kept to the schedule though and it worked out well. Baked in a Lodge cast iron dutch oven. Could have used a little more time to crust up but I was rushing out the door. Hoping as the starter matures, these only get better. Great recipe. Adding it to my standard collections for sure.
I made this yesterday! It is so delicious!! Crust, crumb and flavor were awesome.
I’ll try using a little more flour next time and a smaller dutch oven to get more height.
The only changes I made was that it was so wet, I did the proof in a colander with oiled saran wrap instead of a floured towel. And I proofed in the fridge for about six hours. Too long I think?? There were huge bubbles in on the outside layer of the boule.
Here are some pics. (I made an all white loaf at the same time.) You can kinda see one of the huge bubbles that formed after the fridge proofing, and how flat/wet the doughs were after the bulk fermentation.
Why do people bang on about these complicated (and ridiculously time-consuming) methods for making sourdough bread? I have developed a fantastic recipe that requires virtually no kneading and hardly any effort! It’s this: you put all the ingredients: 9g salt, 600g wholemeal flour, 30g oil, 430ml water and about 400 grams of starter (just 400g of dough kept back from the last loaf), in a Panasonic or similar bread machine set to the French stick dough only program. You just lob it all in and press go! At the end of the program or even an hour before if you wish you take it out & give it a very quick knead - no more than 30 seconds - just to get it into a manageable/handleable lump. Cut off your 400 grams to use as a starter for the next loaf and then put the remainder in a greased bread tin and then into a proofing cabinet (set to 21 - 27 degC) for about 3 to 5 hours depending on temp setting on proofer (Brod & Taylor do one). Then cook it for 30 minutes at 190 degrees in a fan oven or 200 degrees normal oven. That’s it! So easy and produces a fantastic loaf that’s very light and uniform and a shape that’s easy to cut into proper slices - none of this round hard to cut boule nonsense!. All this banging on about banetons and in and out of the fridge and this twiddle and that twiddle is a load of twaddle and frankly just drives me nuts! IMHO it’s just to make people seem clever by dint of mystification!
Kind regards
Philip
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