I made a whole wheat rye bread yesterday and it was my second attempt at making rye bread with 2 different recipes, but yesterdays bread was weighted a ton and was dense no oven rise and a rather bitter taste, maybe some one can shed some light on how to improve my rye breads, here is the recipe. any opinions, it came from Delectable planet website, I reduced it in half. if you check out the website the bread is called Whole Grain Caraway Rye, there is a video on it. under recipes/breads
2 cups of water at 115 degrees
1 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 lbs of whole wheat flour
3/4 lbs of whole rye flour
You will use only about 2 lbs 10 oz - about 4 1/4 cups of flour
1/8 cup molasses
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup caraway seeds
thanks
Chet
Hi,
breads with a lot of rye tend to be quite dense. If you want a lighter bread without giving up to taste you should use less rye and more wheat, something like 20-25% rye and 75-80%wheat.
In order to improve the taste you should start a rye sourdough. It takes just a few days but it will reward you with much more taste than the time it will require.
Bitterness generally comes with old flours.
There are many recipes to make a sourdough here, you can find them in the searchbox.
I would add that if you wish to continue with a rye recipe like the one posted, the pH needs to drop in the recipe in order to help the rye proteins bond and stretch. A sourdough would do this best, but the dough pH can be lowered with acid; vinegar, cider, cider vinegar, pickle juice or something along those lines in an emergency. A tablespoon (5%) to start added in as the water. Too much acid will hinder the yeast.
One teaspoon is not much yeast but should raise it somewhat in about 5-8 hours.
How long and at what temp. were the rising times?
rising times were around 1 1/2 hrs, room temp was 65 deg. never got into the sourdough starters, will look for some recipes.
Chet
will lead to more flavor.
The dough hadn't risen much.
you are probably right, I was hoping for some more oven spring, but as I know now, but where did the bitter taste cocme from, can it be flour was rancid. not that old, maybe 2 months
Chet
since your purchase or since the milling? :-)
Wholemeal flours (especially wheat and spelt as far as I can tell) tend to go rancid a bit sooner than we like. I never experienced bitterness with rye flour, fortunately (I'm still using a stock of 2 years ago and I have nothing to complain).