Hi all guys,
I recently came to this video on YT:
The loaves made by this guy look just perfect. In video it is said that the dough consists of 55% Rye flour, 45% Wheat flour and Rye Sourdough (the percentages probably relates to the whole amount of the flour used in this recipe). SO, I would like to do some reverse engineering.
My standard sourdough Rye bread is following (given in Bakers percentage):
80% water
50% Whole grain Rye flour
50% White wheat flour
25% (percentage of the flour) Sourdough (this is about 250g of sourdough in 375g of flour)
2.5% Salt
I allow my flour to autolyse for about 40 minutes maybe one hour sometimes. Then I mix everything and let it ferment for about 3 or 4 hour, then I make the loaf and wait additional 3 to 4 hours. The issues I have are following:
1. The dough is extremely sticky. In the video it is not sticky at all
2. The proven loaves in the video look just perfect. Their consistency is very nice and they look very firm. My loaf after the proofing period has holes due to the gases going out.
Any suggestions what I might be doing wrong in order to get the similar results as in the video?
less rye starter. 1.8% salt. Fermentation too long. holes leaking gas is sign of over proofing.
Try this..... 55% rye 45% spelt and 24% rye starter (100% hydration) 84% water Let bulk rise 3 hours, shape and let rise. Bake before pin holes appear and about 1/3 risen in volume. (2/3 is already the shaped dough)
24% of the whole amount of flour?
if your recipe flour totals 1000g then the starter at 100% hydration would be 240g.
The video dough does look firmer than 80% hydration. The video also doesn't show handling, just the risen dough in bannetons. I like the added foot/grip on the bottom. Handy. To avoid getting stuck to the dough try running the spatula, scrapers, hands, etc. briefly in water before touching the dough. Dust loaf and baskets well before dropping into bannetons.
I tried you version two times during the weekend. One with 84% hydration and one with 78%. I gave them 2 hours of bulk fermentation. THe first loaf had 2 hours of proofing which I think is not enough, while the other had about 2 hours and additional 6 hours in the fridge. It finished with only a few holes so I believe in summary about six hours is enough (3 hours bulk and 3 hours proofing). ALso in the video above the loaves look really proof, my rye loaves never rise more than let say 1.5 times. Is that normal?
They are heavy flours. You won't get fluff with 55% rye. In the video I'm guessing he used a wine cooler it any or a higher set refrigerator, closer to 60°F to proof the loaves slowly. Go ahead and try a longer bulking time before shaping and see if it works out. Each situation and rye flour varies so find what works for you.
Am I suppose to do dough folding with such kind of dough? If not, and since i always make only one loaf, is it necessary to divide bulk fermentation and proofing, or could I just put the dough in the basket and wait till it rises enough?
is to pop large gas deposits and redistribute the food for the yeast and tighten the matrix a little for more height. It does help in the volume department. A long stint in the basket can lead to being stuck in the basket. Can, not always. Try it and see. :)
I have pretty much found an acceptable ratio of ingredients which are more or less as suggested in the first answer. The breads I made were very good. However, my question is now the following: The same amount of sourdough is suggested by Ken Forkish for making his Overnight Country Blonde which 90% wheat flour, but his bread should have about 12 hours of bulk fermentation and additional 4 hours for proofing. In this case as suggested 3 hours of fermentation and additional time (probably 3, 4) hours for proofing. Why is this almost twice shorter than the recipe with equivalent amount of the sourdough?
There are big differences between the flours. A 90% wheat and a 55% rye are two very different doughs. Rye has a very delicate protein bond and breaks down much faster over the same amount of time. Wheat added to rye can prolong the working time but rye ferments faster than wheat. The more rye in a recipe, the less handling there will be. Think of rye and wheat on the opposite ends of a flour blending scale. The one end being 100% rye and 0% wheat, the other 100% wheat with 0% rye flour. Move along this scale say let's start from the wheat end... Being familiar with a plain wheat dough, you will find the flour slowly reacting to the amount of added rye. Less kneading, more stickiness, faster fermenting, more rye flavour until the dough takes on all the characteristics of rye dough and loosing those of wheat dough. You can decide where and what blend you prefer but you have to consider how the dough will behave when working it. Wheat has volume and can be fluffy, rye has only a little volume, on the average requires more water for volume and often used with words like wet cement, firm crumb and bricks.
Fermentation is the natural process of returning organic products (seeds & flour) using micro organisms (yeast & bacteria) to return them back to their origins to be used by the plant for the next generation of plants. That's what we're doing, playing with a natural process to soften and shape food before it ferments too far and falls apart before we bake it. We use methods to speed up and slow down the fermentation with the hopes to gain more flavour for the end product => bread.
The 45% to 55% Rye/wheat mix is very tricky and folding and shaping the dough is more like pure rye dough... divide the bulk fermented dough quickly to get the blob on and off the scales... quickly bring the ends together without much fuss or shaping, more of a rolling motion than direct stretch and folds. Get it into the banneton pinching seams together and give it a short rest while it rises about half of what a wheat bread would rise. I would suggest filling the banneton about 2/3 and just before the dough reaches the top edge, flip out to bake. Rye dough stiffens more that wheat at low refrigerator temperatures.
I looked again at the video, I would guess he fills his bannetons a little better than half full and when his floured covers are taunt, he flips out the dough. Do you suppose the iron cupboard left of the oven door is a proofing cabinet or used to keep food warm? Maybe used with doors open to dry the bannetons?
One thing he does in the video that I wouldn't do is put my baked bread into a used banneton to cool. It should go onto a rack but I think he did it for the video, to show size. At least I hope so. I keep my raw flour and finished bread away from each other. Same with the racks that hold bannetons. They don't get used for cooling or stacking baked bread without being washed first with soapy water. :)