80% rye

After a few weeks of making really basic loaves, nothing fancy just 1-2-3 loaves, I thought it was time for a high rye.

I’ve made 70% rye before so I thought I should be brave and try 80%. I was going to load it up with all sorts of seeds and nuts but I ended up going for a fairly plain rye. The only extra in this loaf is a bit of Star Anise (which I’m not usually a big fan of, but bread tends to make things better).

So here’s the formula:

Method:

1. 3 stage levain build starting with 20g of NMNF rye starter.

 I had to make the feeding times work around my schedule:

• 1st feed: Thursday night (20g rye flour, 20g water)
• 2nd feed: Friday morning before work (90g flour, 70g water)
• 3rd feed: Friday evening before bed (220g rye, 190g water).
• Ended up with an 85% hydration levain, and 40% prefermented flour.
• I also dropped some Star Anise in the levain, to kind of let it infuse.
• [Note to self: do not do this again; fishing it out when I was making the dough is messy!! LOL!!]

3. On Friday evening I soaked more Star Anise in the boiling water and left that overnight.
4. I mixed everything up using my hands, very very messy but so much fun!
5. Patted the dough down on a lightly floured surface and rolled into a log, which I put in the tin and covered.
6. I went for a run, by the time I got back the dough had already risen quite a bit.
7. After a total proofing time of about 2 ½ hours, I put the dough in a 250dC oven. Baked with steam for 10mins and then for another 1 ¼ at 210dC.

I could really smell the Star Anise while the loaf baked. It was lovely.

There wasn’t a huge amount of oven spring, but I wasn’t expected there to be any.

Here's the crumb: 

The flavour is really good, not a lot of sour. In hindsight, i think i should have let the dough proof for a bit longer, but that's next weeks project :)

Happy baking :)