Jewish Rye

This recipe comes courtesy of David Snyder who posted his adaptation here.

I have posted about other rye breads I have tried making previously and I have to say all of them including this one have come out pretty good.  The big difference in this recipe is that all of the rye flour is added into the rye sour and the dough is fairly high hydration compared to the other ones I have made.

I ran out of First Clear Flour so I had to substitute 217 grams using KAF High Fiber Flour instead.  I think the bread would have turned out better if I had used 100% First Clear to be honest.  I also added some dried Toasted Onions which I reconstituted in the water used for the final dough which gave the rye a nice onion flavor which I love.

One other point is that I followed Davids instructions for making a 100% Rye starter using Pumpernickel flour and I only ended up with 708 grams instead of 750 grams called in the recipe.  I am not sure if this had that much of an effect on the final bake, but next time I will make a larger batch of starter since I would have liked to keep some for my next bake so now I have to start all over again :(.  I do have to say I have made Rye starters in the past and I really like the way this one came out.  You can follow Dave's excellent instructions here if you are interested in converting your starter to a Rye sour starter.

Also, I did not have any leftover rye bread so I didn't add the Altus to this bake, but next time I will add it to see the difference.  I have made rye breads with and without the Altus and have not made up my mind if it is necessary or not.

The end result of my bake was not as open of a crumb as David achieved, but throw some pastrami and Thousand Island Dressing or mustard for you traditionalists out there and deli nirvana is at your fingertips!

Also note that most Jewish Rye recipes call for the use of First Clear Flour which is taken from what remains after the millers sift the patent flour out of the straight flour.  Patent flour is the purest and highest quality flour available.  First clear flours come from hard wheat and has a protein content of 15.0 - 18.0% which is ideal to strengthen the lower protein content of rye flours which are normally around 6.5%.

High-gluten flour can be substituted for First Clear and has a protein content of 13.5- 14.5%.

White rye flour is very important in authentic Jewish style rye breads and comes from the heart of the endosperm.  It contains only 6.5% protein.  (I used Pumpernickel or Dark Rye in this bake)

Medium rye flour is milled from the whole grain after the bran has been stripped away and is used for high-percentage rye recipes (heavier breads for sure).

Dark rye flour, is what remains of the rye kernel after the white rye flour has been sifted out.  As you can imagine it is very dark and strong flavored flour.

Not quite two years ago, when I joined TFL, I had a simple goal:   I wanted to figure out how to make Tzitzel bread which was a favorite when I was growing up in St. Louis Missouri.   I had recently started baking bread, and I figured how hard could it be.   When I searched the web, I found nothing for Tzitzel, but plenty of recipes for rye bread - many of which I tried.  Nothing was even remotely like what I remembered, and given my level of expertise, it was pretty poor eating.   I joined this site where I had been lurking for awhile and asked the question.   Again, no one seemed to have heard of it.   I did get a lot of great advice for baking Jewish Rye, and settled on "Jewish Corn Bread" which was a combo of some points in a comment by Norm (nbicomputers) on a David Snyder post, and one of Greenstein's recipes from Secrets of a Jewish Baker.   This kicked up the quality several notches, but still wasn't right.   When I started my quest, I had emailed the retiring owner of the St. Louis bakery, Pratzels,  where my father had bought Tzitzel.   Early on she told me that it was "just" a Jewish Rye wrapped in corn meal.   Later, when I knew more, I asked her again, and she told me that it was made with medium rye and bread flour.   It wasn't until a few weeks ago, when I got my latest shipment of King Arthur flours, that I had some medium rye to play with.   At the same time, admiring a gorgeous Challah posted by dawkins, I gave up my resistance  and bought a copy of Inside the Jewish Bakery.   And there was the answer - I was off base using the corn bread recipe.   I should have been baking Jewish Deli Rye.   On page 74 the authors include a paragraph saying that to make Tzitzel one should modify their Jewish Deli Rye thus and so, and voila - Tzitzel.   And so ---- Tzitzel.   Thank you Norm and Stan!  

Over the last year I have been trying to make a Rye bread called Tzitzel, which I remember from a bakery in my home town - University City, Missouri.  The bakery is still there and still makes Tzitzel, but as I don't have much (any) reason to go back to U. City, I figured I'd better learn how to make it myself.  After many attempts, I finally felt that I managed to make a respectable Jewish Rye with a nice crust and flavor http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20506/jewish-corn-rye but it still didn't taste anything like the Tzitzel I remembered.   Recently I took advantage of the brief free shipping period at King Arthur, and ordered White Rye and Sir Lancelot flour, neither of which I'd baked with before.   I tried making Jewish Rye with these two flours instead of Hodgson's Mill Stone Ground Rye and King Arthur Bread Flour.   I started to feel I was onto something despite the fact that the white rye flavor was much too mild, and the loaves puffed up like a white flour wheat loaf, which is very un-Tzitzel-like.   Today I tried again with a rye sour made with 2/3 white rye and 1/3 Arrowhead Mills organic rye, which is a whole rye flour, but much less gritty than Hodgson's Mills.   This time, the shape (broad and squat) flavor and texture were much more on target.   So now I have one more thing to add to my long list of baking lessons that I've learned this year - the flour matters.   If I want to get any closer to the original Pratzel's tzitzel, I am going to have to find out what kind of flour they use, and that's that.

Saturday using Rye Sour excess from an earlier baking--3 or 4 days ago--I built more Rye sour, flollowing Greenstein's Secrets of a Jewish Baker; I did stage 3 feeding late Saturday evening, and refrigerated the refreshed sour intending an early Sunday morning bake.

Sunday; early AM: I let the sour come to room temperature (it had nearly doubled overnight, and risen more in the 1 hour warmup. I'd measured 25 oz. of Rye Sour into my hand-mixing bowl, and put the remaining cup of sour in the refrigerator, for another day. I'd previously weighed out the dough's First Clear flour, salt, and yeast.  I was about to pour the dough's water addition into the sour when the phone rang. Five minutes later I was out the door, heading for a local carriage driving show; it's organizer had called and asked my assistance. I couldn't say no. I spent five minutes covering the Rye Sour with plastic wrap, and putting it back in the refrigerator. The rest of the mise en place was left where it sat.

I came home late afternoon, sunburned of face, dusty, weary, and pleased with the day's work. However, I was in no mood to bake bread.

Monday (today) I picked up where I left off. Mixed the dough, and baked two loaves.

Minor differences: obviously the extra twenty-four hours retarding the sour; I restored the salt to the original recipe (I'd reduced it slightly when I made it the first time.), and I made the starch glaze with arrowroot starch instead of corn starch. I use arrowroot starch in lieu of corn startch in most cooking recipes. I find its silkier consistency more to my liking.

The first time I baked Jewish Rye, I had a couple of crust blowouts: unwanted blowouts. (see

I got some good suggestions from other TFLer's, on how to prevent them. I incorporated all (or most) of their suggestions processsing this dough. I scored deeper, and (my idea; a variant of another's suggestion to make them longitudinal) I angled the slashes slightly from being square with the loaves' long axes; and I final proofed until I was certain any further would be over-proofed.

Here's the results, no Grand Canyon bursts!

I am, of course, delighted with the result. I'm certain the crumb will be consistent with the first bake. Thanks again to all those who helped me avoid unwanted crust bursts with this bake--and, hopefully future ones.

There is only one small doubt in my head: did the unplanned retardation influence the absence of unwanted cracking? D**m, I'll just have to bake this formula again, and eliminate the extra 24 hours. Tough, but somebody's got to do it.

David G

After last week's 70% rye bread, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I wanted to return to the first rye I had made – Jewish Sour Rye – to see if my tastes had shifted. I made the Jewish Sour Rye from “Secrets of a Jewish Baker,” by George Greenstein.

This is a classic “deli rye,” or “light rye.” It is made with a white rye sour. Rye snobs (who will remain nameless) turn up their noses at white rye because it has so little rye flavor. In fact, most of the time, I make this bread with whole rye. But, this time I made it “by the book.”

Well, not exactly by the book. Greenstein's book provides volume measurements for all ingredients. It has been criticized for this. Last year, I worked out the ingredient weights for the Sour Rye recipe, and these are provided below.

Method

1. If you have a white rye sour, build it up to a volume of 4 cups or so the day before mixing the dough. If you do not have a rye sour but do have a wheat-based sourdough starter, you can easily convert it to a white rye starter by feeding it 2-3 times with white rye flour over 2-3 days.

2. In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, dissolve the yeast in the water, then add the rye sour and mix thoroughly with your hands, a spoon or, if using a mixer, with the paddle.

3. Stir the salt into the flour and add this to the bowl and mix well.

4. Dump the dough onto the lightly floured board and knead until smooth. If using a mixer, switch to the dough hook and knead at Speed 2 until the dough begins to clear the sides of the bowl (8-12 minutes). Add the Caraway Seeds about 1 minute before finished kneading. Even if using a mixer, I transfer the dough to the board and continue kneading for a couple minutes. The dough should be smooth but a bit sticky.

5. Form the dough into a ball and transfer it to a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl and let it rest for 15-20 minutes.

6. Transfer the dough back to the board and divide it into two equal pieces.

7. Form each piece into a pan loaf, free-standing long loaf or boule.

8. Dust a piece of parchment paper or a baking pan liberally with cornmeal, and transfer the loaves to the parchment, keeping them at least 3 inches apart so they do not join when risen.

9. Cover the loaves and let them rise until double in size. (About 60 minutes.)

10. Pre-heat the oven to 375F with a baking stone in place optionally. Prepare your oven steaming method of choice.

11. Prepare the cornstarch glaze. Whisk 1-1/2 to 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch in ¼ cup of water. Pour this slowly into a sauce pan containing 1 cup of gently boiling water, whisking constantly. Continue cooking and stirring until slightly thickened (a few seconds, only!) and remove the pan from heat. Set it aside.

12. When the loaves are fully proofed, uncover them. Brush them with the cornstarch glaze. Score them. (3 cuts across the long axis of the loaves would be typical.) Transfer the loaves to the oven, and steam the oven.

13. After 5 minutes, remove any container with water from the oven and continue baking for 30-40 minutes more.

14. The loaves are done when the crust is very firm, the internal temperature is at least 205 d

    egrees and the loaves give a “hollow” sound when thumped on the bottom. When they are done, leave them in the oven with the heat turned off and the door cracked open a couple of inches for another 5-10 minutes.



15. 
    

    After the loaves are out of the oven, brush them again with the cornstarch solution.

    
    


16. 
    

    Cool completely before slicing.

    
    

Jewish Sour Rye

Jewish Sour Rye crumb

Well, the verdict is: I like rye bread – white rye, dark rye, whatever. Each has it's place. The Jewish Sour Rye I had toasted for breakfast with Salami and Eggs was just right. The 70% Sourdough Rye I had for lunch with slices of Smoked Gouda and Cotswold cheese was perfect.

It's not such a hardship, having to make these choices.

David

Submitted to Yeast Spotting on Susan FNP's  Wild Yeast blog (This week, hosted by Nick at imafoodblog)

Greenstein’s Corn (RYE) Bread. This is my first try. :) 

I'll re-do it tand make it:
- less salty
- I'll give it about 30 minutes of proofing after shaping (not more!) - maybe this will help me to avoid crust cracks
- I'll try to add more sourness by fermenting my rye sour overnight, cos I am ethnically Russian and we like sour rye breads
- I'll try to make the crust softer, cos my husband likes it softer. :)

Front view

At night :)

In the morning :)

Thanks in advance for your comments!
:)