So, a few months ago I chronicled my problems with my brand of rye flour -- how it changed inexplicably about a year ago, how my breads got squat and dull-tasting, and how I revived the size and flavor of the deli rye I make by reining in the timings and, ultimately, spiking the dough with yeast.
see: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/74113/grinds-thing & https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/74905/3-ryes-are-same-different
Now, after reading this wordloaf interview with Sophie Williams of Raven Bakery, I suddenly realized that I had neglected a possible solution to my baking problems. I never considered varying the inoculation of my preferments. I had continued to build my deli rye (45% whole rye/55% bread flour, in which all the rye flour is prefermented) using my sourdough starter at a ratio of about 10% of the amount of flour -- so 50 g of 100% hydration rye starter to 500 g of rye flour.
But, in the interview, Sophie, who says she also has run into the problem of variable rye flour, talks about inoculating her ryes at about 3%, and maybe dropping to 2% during the summer. This moved me to try a new experiment: two loaves with an inoculation of 3%, one pure sourdough and the other spiked with IDY.
Behold:
The sourdough-only boule is on the left in the photos, the yeast-spiked loaf on the right. And, this experiment yielded the exact opposite of the results of my last experiment with 10% inoculation: the sourdough-only bread is without a doubt the better boule, with a slightly higher profile, a more dramatically caramelized crust, and a much deeper flavor. The yeast-spiked bread, which has an equal amount of salt as the other, tastes salty by comparison -- I suspect because there's so little flavor for the salt to bring out. My partner, in a blind taste test, fully agreed with this assessment.
I feel silly admitting that I didn't think of adjusting the inoculation in my prior attempts to make better bread. But this experiment suggests that the problem I had was that the flour had changed (the biggest mutation I noticed was that the grind got much finer) and it needed way less starter to produce a complex flavor. By reducing the amount of starter to 3%, I seem to have restored the flavor profile and the quality of the bread to the level I seek.
Thanks to Sophie for the inspiration and Andrew for asking the questions.
Rob
This is really valuable work, Rob. I would not have expected so much improvement from dropping the inoculation like that, either. Maybe I will give it a try myself. My rye starter has gone by the wayside so another one seems to be in my future.
TomP
Very interesting experiment Rob. I think we touched on inoculation levels a little in some conversations about shaggy SD biga a while ago.
Just for clarification, these are fermented as is; no preferment involved?
sorry for not being clear, Rene.
In this deli rye recipe - adapted from Ilya Flyamer's, which is linked to in one of the links - you preferment all the rye flour. In this case, that meant 270 g of whole rye flour, to which I added about 8 g of starter (in the past, I would have used almost 4x as much) and somewhere north of 75% tap water. I let it rest for 18 hours or so (with a fridge break of 8 hours, not counted in the 18, to meet my schedule.) I cut the preferment in 1/2 and used one naked, to which I added bread flour, water, salt (1%) and caraway seed (1%). The other received identical amounts of bread flour, water, salt & caraway, plus 1% (or about 3 g) of IDY.
Both loaves were minimally kneaded and fermented for 2 1/2 hours. Then I shaped them and, 1/2 an hour later, baked them side-by-side in the same dutch oven at 450f/232c -- 20 min with lid on, 20 min lid off, plus 6 minutes out of the pan (oven still on) to firm up the sides.
For some reason, the loaf with IDY came out of the oven weighing about 20 g more.💪
Rob
In November I was experimenting with wholemeal rye quite a lot to try and get a deli-type rye bread I was happy with using 25% wholemeal rye in the total flour, all the rye prefermented.
In the end I kinda got there and was able to bake both the campagne type rye like I was doing in the past as well as a tighter crumb and more sour deli-type rye.
I am in no way as expert on rye loaves as other here, but one of my main takeaways from those experiments was that wholemeal rye is very counter-intuitive in terms of preferment behavior. Unlike wheat, I found that a high hydration wholemeal rye preferment results in a less sour tasting final loaf than low hydration and that inoculation also played an important part in that. Again, and this fits with your findings, high inoculation was more sour tasting than lower inoculation. Where your findings go further is in terms of the actual yeast activity being higher also with a lower inoculation.
Wondering also what the temperature might do with preferments and bulk ferment. Maybe some more experiments are called for.
I also found that crumb tightness and sourness were dependent on the split of the total fermentation time of the final 25% rye/75% wheat dough between bulk ferment and proving. With a same overall fermentation time, shorter bf and longer proving resulted in uniform/tighter crumb and more sour taste and longer bf/shorter proving resulted in a less sour and more open, campagne style crumb.
On the subject of wholemeal rye in preferments being counterintuitive, I also have a hunch that the 1:2:2 ratio for preferment build for a liquid preferment does not hold for rye.
Not sure how this all links with your two bakes here, but felt like there was some common ground .
Definite congruency, Rene. In fact, this reminds me of a seemingly counter-intuitive notion I had early in my sourdough adventures and then forgot: more sourdough starter yields less sour bread. Obviously, this depends on timing and temperature and the flours you are using. And with whole rye levains, it depends also on how far the preferment has moved toward breaking down. I tend to agree with Sophie -- you still want high shoulders. My conclusion is: if my levain puddled, I'd spike the final dough with yeast. But if I caught it at the stage just before breakdown, I'd bake it straight.
As for your insight on bulk and proof, it's interesting to note Sophie's statement in the interview that she doesn't distinguish. Then again, she bakes only pan loaves (crusty boules don't sell, she reports) and her go-to loaf seems to be 60% rye/40% wheat. My experience is similar: the higher the rye, the less the division between bulk & proof matters.
Rob
That is a nice experiment Rob, I’m impressed at the difference you’ve found from just changing the innoculation. For the most part, I adjust the innoculation mostly for timing and never think of changing it for flavour.
Benny
I just find it really curious why the loaf with added yeast doesn't taste better than the pure SD - a result you've had in many previous experiments. I remember you writing that the spiked loaf was usually more sour and more flavourful. In this experiment, did the spiked loaf become more sour still, or was it neither more flavourful nor sour?
Does this have to do with why it ended up heavier too? Did the pure SD loaf somehow end up with more fermentation and gaseous byproducts???
-Lin
The yeast-spiked bread was neither flavorful nor particularly sour -- contrary to the results of past taste tests.
In the interview on wordloaf, Sophie Williams talks about "looking for a certain amount of breakdown, but not too much" in her rye fermentations. At 10% inoculation, an 18 hour preferment would have broken down quite a bit -- pulled from the side of the bowl and flattened -- whereas my experience before the rye flour changed and became finer, was that it never did this. At 3% inoculation, the preferment was still firm and only slightly spread after 18 hours, just like it used to be.
Perhaps this full fermentation meant that the loaf released more water during baking. Perhaps commercial yeast retains more moisture than wild yeast. I don't know.
I'm just happy to have some new things to think about - and to be eating better bread.
Rob
Hey Rob. I read your comments on Wordloaf then came here to see your experiments. I also bake in NYC and use Farmer Ground flours almost exclusively. After baking two loaves last week using a new bag of FG rye, I definitely noticed a difference in fermentation time. It was much faster. But, I always scald the rye flour for my deli rye style bread - so I believe it's due to more enzymatic activity as Sophie explained and not to a finer grind of the flour. Since you first noticed this happening about a year ago, maybe it's a seasonal thing? I've never noticed it before now. FYI I used a 12 hour rye/AP levain that I feed every day (never goes in fridge), and only 10% PFF in final dough formula (in addition to rye scald) and 80% hydration - these recent loaves may have been slightly less sour than usual, and slightly less oven spring, but still good crumb and lots of flavor. Will observe more closely as I use up this bag of FG rye - date on bag is Best By 10/14/25. Cheers.
Hey, loriDnyc -- how great to hear from another NYC ryer!
Farmer Ground Flour is the bomb. It's so much better than any other retail rye you can get here. But I'm not sure the change in the flour is only seasonal. I queried them and they told me that in late 2023/early 2024 they acquired a new stone, so it was very possible the flour was coming out finer. I also like their spelt. But I find their AP and Bread Flour to be a little underweight -- low protein compared to King Arthur.
Your idea of trying a scald in my deli-style rye is something to play with in the future. Thanks. I've also thought of picking up some pale rye malt from a brew supply place and scalding that (not over 65c, to keep it active.) I've done that for other breads and a little bit of malt goes a long way.
I hope you keep in touch: rye bread is a rather solitary obsession, and it's great to know there's a kindred spirit out there fermenting the spicy grain elsewhere in the 5 boroughs.
Rob
Interesting food for thought Rob, nice to see that there's been some progress.
Like Lin I was wondering why the spiked yeast one was 'different' from previous bakes, and perhaps it wasn't different at all, it was just being compared to a better bread. All wonderful and mysterious, I guess!
Do you ever use sifted (white) rye? And what are your thoughts on using that?
-Jon
Yeah, Jon. I now know what Alice (in wonderland) was going on about as her body started expanding like a rye levain. The more experience I get with rye, the more I say 'curiouser and curiouser.'
As for white rye -- yes I've tried it in some special recipes, like this one: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/71733/vitebsk-rye
I was gonna say I wouldn't see the need for it in a deli rye. But why not? Sifting's too messy for my small NY apartment. I don't have the space or the tools. But next time I hit the Polish supermarket that carries all the varieties of rye flour I'll be sure to snag a bag.
Rob