After 18 hours of baking...

directly to the pictures

The real color? something in between that of the two pictures. Unfortunately digital cameras seem to hate black objects. I added something white all around to force a sharp contrast, but evidently it was not enough.

How I did it: first leaven with a touch of starter, 50 gr of rye and 50 of water.

Soaker with 300 gr of rye, 2 teaspoons of malted barley flour and 600 gr of r.t water, mixed well and kept around 65°C for 2 hours.

Final build with 350 gr of rye and 50 gr of grossly cracked sunflower seeds.

I made the dough double a first time, than I added 14 gr of salt, reworked the dough and let double a second time in the pullman pan, than baked the bread completely covered for 18 hours at approximately 130°C (it's my funny oven on the stove, so I can monitor but not control the temperature... I wonder if 130°C (sometimes 140) aren't too much).

Well, the taste is.. there are no words. It has an incredible deep aroma of malt and a sweeeeet taste that I love!

The rye I used was cracked rye that I refined in a blender, something like a coffee grinder. The final grind was a very gross flour, so to say.