Rye dough expansion and hydration

Baking Techniques
1

A while back I posted about a situation with the final dough of a rye recipe not rising, which I at first blamed on proofing at so high a temperature as to kill the yeast. I was then convinced by the ensuing discussion that it was more likely I had just missed the window of expansion and then over-proofed.

I’ve since had a similar experience (though with a lower proofing box temperature so with no suspicion of the heat being a problem), and it has gradually dawned on me that a repeated problem I’ve had with rye doughs is insufficient hydration, and that this may be the real cause. Most of the rye recipes I’ve been making recently have been from The Rye Baker, and it’s become clear to me that my (home milled) rye flour is a lot more thirsty than what Stanley appears to be using. Perhaps dry New England winters vs California climate is a part of this. It’s taken me a while to realize this since rye dough texture varies so much between recipes and it’s hard to describe desired texture with words. It seems a lot harder to get a feel for rye dough texture (espec wrt hydration) than wheat.

This effect becomes proportionally more pronounced the higher the percentage of rye in the recipe (and the two recipes I had this problem with were either 100% rye or close to it).

Also it appears to me that a rye dough with low hydration doesn’t expand very much. It’s funny that I don’t recall seeing this noted anywhere, in any the bread books I’ve read, but it seems like a rather important thing to know. My doughs rarely expanded as much as what Stanley described in his recipes, and I’ve just taken to not worrying about that, but I think this is probably why.

When I maintain my rye starter culture with equal weights of rye and water, it always rises more slowly then my other starter and doesn’t tend to ever make it to doubling in size. I’ve recently taken to using slightly more water and it makes all the difference in the world.

Can anyone else confirm this idea? Is this a well-known “thing” with rye dough? I understand this correlation between hydration and fermentation exists for wheat dough also, but it just seems so much more pronounced with rye.

1 Like
2

My [quick] take on this… All breads can work within a certain range of hydration. There will be a point at both spectrums where the bread will suffer but works very well within that range.

Most breads when overly hydrated can work (to an extent) if done as a pan bread. Wheat breads can take lower hydration than rye breads. Rye breads at the same hydration as low hydration wheat breads [where they still make a nice loaf] can end up a brick.

3

I think a dryer dough is slower to ferment in part because of actual mechanics, the slow diffusion/movement of the microbes through the medium.

So it probably helpful to do incremental builds up to a large pre-ferment when your dough is dry.

In this experiment I did a starter flour race of sorts. All 100% hydration.
The rye felt dryer and was slower to ramp up, but actually looked taller by the end.
Possibly it held the bubbles more due to it’s dryness or possibly the rye flour offered more/longer duration food for the microbes.

4

Traditionally rye does have a lot of starter/preferment. And I can think of one rye in particular which is supposed to be very dense, Westphalian Pumpernickel, where the secret of the bread is in the bake.

1 Like
5

hello I am a retired baker and worked in many jewish bakeries so I have made a lot of rye through the years, not sure of your recipe ,but rye flour was only used for the sour (starter) in are recipes, you need clear flour to make a real jewish rye with the sour…using 100% rye does not have the gluten (strength) to make a nice rye bread