Reinhart's German Five-Kern

I baked German Five-Kern Bread from Peter Reinhart's "Crust & Crumb" a few weeks back. This has turned out to be one of my favorite breads and I wish I had discovered it sooner. The Five-Kern is made from coarse dark rye flour (20.26% - I used NYBakers Dark Rye), bread flour (KA), cooked brown rice, polenta, oats, flax seeds and honey. And water and salt, of course. I guess I turned it into a Six-Kern bread with the poppy seed embellishment.

I followed Peter's book closely, but do not feel comfortable posting his commercial formula. It does involve building a rye sponge followed by a firm rye starter over the course of a couple of days. The flavor was incredible, particularly the crust, and the crumb was much lighter than I expected. An enticing aroma filled the house during the bake.

Even with the 2 stage elaboration, the amount of pre-fermented flour was only 15.19%. The final dough hydration was 63.80%, but the crumb of the finished loaves seemed moister than that.

Submitted to YeastSpotting