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You can still order fermented red rye malt from Ukraine on eBay. Do a search for “solod rye malt”. Several people are selling it at varying prices. While toasting rye malt will give you a very serviceable product, it’s not fermented like the real thing. 
At some point I’m going to buy or make solod for sure, because I’m totally intrigued, but it’s pretty expensive and shipping timing is pretty uncertain at the moment.
My other thought, which may be wrong, is that solod is needed to impart certain flavors if you use instant or cake yeast, but if you’re using sourdough fermentation, then at least some of those flavors and chemical changes will happen anyway during all the dough stages. That said, because solod fermentation is at higher temperatures, I know it’s not going to be identical.
Wonderful rye bread Melissa! This bread is in the upper, upper , top tier ,5 best rye breads I’ve ever had. Great bake! The flavor is from long and large preferment .
Checkout a brewers supply store for rye malt. If you have a grain mill you can mill the malt after toasting it. I think your substitution of sprouted rye is a good one. It seems that using either rye malt or sprouted rye flour would yield the same results as scalding the flour at 175 would likely kill off the enzymes in either product and were just gelatinizing starches in the scald.
Yes, most home brew supply stores carry malted rye berries. I followed Mr. Ginsberg’s guidance in his book for toasting the berries to make both red and black malt as called for in this and other of his recipes, and using a spice/coffee grinder to make the powder worked very well.
Short cut…
Buy some pale rye malt. Make sure its diastatic. Rehydrate, drain and ferment. After which heat, as recommended, till you get a lovely deep red colour. Then grind.
Cuts out the sprouting and knocks off a few days from the process.
This really sounds like a very flavorful bread. I’ve been playing with sprouting my rye & spelt berries, then dehydrating them and then milling them to use in my sourdough. I didn’t think of roasting them first because I thought it would mess with the enzymes. But roasting a small amount would definitely increase the flavor. I’ve been using Brewery Supply grain for several years now – mostly just small amounts (like 1/2 tsp) when I feed my starter and as a dusting powder. My favorite is Vienna Crystal & Munich. The darker the roast of the grain, the stronger the flavor it imparts – almost hitting bitter notes with chocolate malts. I use the spent grain as well, but wet & blended with beer as my liquid. And I only use up to 100g of that per loaf. The flavor they add to the bread depends on the beer that was made from them. Grain used to make a porter will be really strong, so I only use 50g of those.
Like the others here, I’ve used toasted diastatic/malted rye berries from a brewer’s supply store with good results, but I’d be interested in sprouting my own.
My question is (always) how do y’all get those smooth crusts on your Baltic rye breads? Stanley Ginsberg says bursts along the edges are a symptom of underproofing, but if that were my problem, I would have gotten the proofing right once in all my many attempts. I dock the loaf, I smooth it with wet hands, I glaze–I always get cracks. Now I’m wondering if the baking surface temperature could be the cause? I notice this recipe is baked at a comparatively low temperature, especially considering the (800*F) high temps I understand are used to set crusts in commercial Baltic bakeries.
Thank you all for the malt info and acquisition tips, and alternative method ideas!
@Sabinewalter The way you use spent grains in breads and crystal malt powders for dusting the dough/crust is intriguing – on my to-try list.
@smithheisters I agree with your assessment that the low temp may help reduce crust cracking. Additionally I do probably edge toward overproofing and maybe I didn’t smooth this loaf very aggressively because there were still surface holes as it baked (I didn’t dock). Hopefully someone with more rye specialization will have some suggestions though.
I’m eager to try this! If I am using Fawcett’s Crystal (Red) Rye Malt that I will mill instead of the sprouted rye berries, do I still need to toast the flour?
I don’t think you need to toast it. The process for making crystal malt involves a lot of heat as well. Here’s the description from the link below.
How Crystal Malt is Made
Crystal malts are made from barley grain in a process similar to that of making pale malts. As with pale malts, the grains are steeped and germinated. Unlike pale malts, crystal malts are then stewed — they are heated in a closed system that doesn’t allow moisture to escape. As a result, the starch interiors of the barley grains are broken into sugars by amylase enzymes in the barley. After stewing, the grains are kilned. Kilning dries the grain, darkens the husk and caramelizes some of the sugar inside.
The difference with Solod is only the fermentation stage after sprouting, I believe, and I’m basing that off this how-to.
The difference between solod and crystal rye malt is that solod is sprouted, fermented and toasted. Crystal rye malt is sprouted and toasted. While there may be a difference in how much they have been toasted they have been heated up enough so both of them are non diastatic. So I agree with @Fermentada there’s no need to toast them.
One can turn a pale malt into solod by rehydrating them then carrying on the process by fermenting then roasting them. This is possible because pale rye malts haven’t been heated enough to denature the grain.
Thanks for confirming this, also for the info on turning crystal malt into solod!
Pale Malt into Solod 
Crystal is already denatured and non diastatic.
Let me see if I have this right:
Pale malt can be turned into solod because it hasn’t been heated as high. The grain in crystal malt has been denatured by higher temps so it won’t ferment?
(Unless you add starter? 
I saw a comment on that Beets and Bones blog post about adding starter.)
Well it can ferment, I suppose, but it won’t be solod and exactly how much sugar can be fermented will depend on how high it has been roasted. It won’t be the same as fermenting a grain where the enzymes are still active.
So take the Beets and Bones recipe…
Rehydrate pale rye malt (12-24 hours?) then drain all the excess water and continue from Step 4:
Transfer the grains into a loosely covered glass dish, and a place that can maintain temperature of 113-122ºF (I use a ‘bread proof’ option on my oven and wrap the dish in foil) for 12 hours. Then I increase the temperature to 140ºF and maintain it for the next 36 hours; until solod darkens in color and has a slight malty aroma.
At this point, grain needs to dry. First I spread it thin on a large jelly-roll sheet, and leave it at ‘bread-proof’ temperature of my oven for 12 hours.
I then increase temperature to 159ºF and dry for 12 more hours.
One more temperature increase - 176ºF - for 12-18 hours, depending on the level of darkness I prefer at the moment.
After I cool the malt, I store it in a loosely covered jar for a month before milling it.
Then you should have solod. But the solod i’ve seen was much darker so you choose how far to roast them.
Pale rye malt has been sprouted and slightly heat treated. Not enough to denature them. So all one needs to do is back it up a step, re-hydrate, then carry on the process. The sprouting has already been done for you so that knocks off a few days from the process. Crystal Rye Malt has been taken too far and while it can be fermented after the fact it hasn’t been roasted as much and it probably still won’t have the same taste.
Thank you! I appreciate the detail. I may try this someday using the instant pot instructions in the comments of that beets and bones post. I don’t have an oven or dehydrator that can do the temps.
If you do it’ll make a very interesting post. Maintaining temperature is important. I tried something similar using a Yoghurt Maker but not really suited for it. It behaved like a slow cooker and generated too much water. One really needs specialist equipment. I’m also wary of rye and messing about with these kinds of fermentation. One really needs to be careful of moulds like ergot.