Rye on the brain

Funny how the rye discussions have popped up in the last couple of days. I'd been planning to make the New York Deli Rye from the BBA this weekend. I couldn't find white rye flour locally, and had to mail order some. The bread turned out very different from those I've made with dark rye. Looks great for sandwiches. The book calls for sauteed onions in the starter (which I'd probably like), but I chose to omit them to see what the straight bread is like.

The recipe starts with a rye starter, based on Peter Reinhart's barm. Well, to get a barm, you have to go through 4 days of building what he calls a seed culture, then another day or so to turn it into a barm. I've read the instructions several times, and I still don't really get the difference between the two. Years ago, I made the barm, and ended up with several pounds of stuff. So I used my own well-refreshed starter instead. Neener, neener. The barm is equal weights of flour and water, with seed culture added, which is not quite equal weights of flour and water. So I figured that refreshing my starter to equal weights would get me close enough.

Overall, I think it came out well, but I may have let the starter cook too long... I made the starter at 2:30 one day, put it in the fridge at 7:00, took it out next day at 9:30, and didn't use it till 1:00. hmmmm...it was bubbling very nicely though, and the final dough got 2 more teaspoons of instant yeast. I glazed the dough with beaten egg white before slashing.

The flavor is quite mild. If it weren't for the caraway seeds, it wouldn't taste very rye-ish, though the flavor is good. Maybe I'm just too used to dark rye breads. The crumb is moist and feels good, and the loaf is really surprisingly soft, easy to flatten while slicing. I'm going to make it again (sometime) with the onions added to the starter.

Sue