vitebsk rye

So I passed by a Polish grocery the other day and got myself two bags of white rye (Maka Chlebowa zytnia T-720) and I trekked to Thirsty Quaker, a home brewing place in Jersey City (Brooklyn's Bitters & Esters sadly closed late last year), and bought a 1/2 pound of malted rye, coarsely milled.

So, obviously, it was time to have another go at Vitebsk Rye. I am at my brother's house this weekend, and, to my dismay, he told me he had no anise seed. But he had a brilliant idea for a substitute: Pernod (ok: it's made principally with star anise and not anise -- but the flavors are close). So: when I soaked the rye malt (and some of the rye flour) I subbed in 60 g of the French spirit for 60 g of hot water (I have no idea why I chose 60g -- it just seemed right to me -- but it served perfectly to cool the remaining boiling water to just under 65C, which would activate and not kill the diastatic rye malt.)

As with the last time I made it, my timings and temps got all screwed up. This was in part because my sourdough starter, a portion of which had been in my brother's fridge for 10 weeks and got refreshed once overnight on the counter, was still a little weak. Also, I didn't have a particularly precise way of keeping the dough and soak at a stable 30C. I used my brother's electric oven, which I turned on and off a couple of times, and I may have inadvertently had the temperature too high and perhaps killed what yeast there was in the dough.

The dough was a seemingly undeveloped lump of mud when I did the final mix, so I added 30g of additional sourdough -- which, in the interim, I had refreshed a second time and had seen double in size on the counter -- and then four grams of instant yeast that I found in the fridge (was it still active? I have no idea) and a bit of extra water. I also chose to leave out the molasses, as Pernod is pretty sweet on its own, and I dialed back the salt to 1% of total flour. 

I gave it an extra three hours of fermentation time during which I saw some activity, though mostly the dough remained like a hunk of muck and didn't rise. Still, being impatient as always and not wanting to stay up all night, I baked it (shaped, non-traditionally, as a boule because that's the shape of the Dutch Oven my brother has). It took 45 minutes to bake through -- instead of the 30 suggested in the recipe -- and I feared it would be an inedible gummy mass. My brother -- perhaps influenced by the THC gummy he had ingested -- insisted we cut into the bread after an hour and a half on the counter. Et voila!

My brother's verdict: it's delicious. And I have to agree: the crust is brittle and a tiny bit burnt (probably from all that extra oven time) but the bitterness works well against the sweetness of the flavor imparted by the Pernod. The crumb is moist and delicate. The anise taste is lovely. I'll be having a slice this morning with smoked salmon.

Rob

**ps: having had the bread with smoked salmon, I'd say this: it wasn't bad (can rye & smoked salmon ever be bad?), but it wasn't the best because this bread deserves to be its own showcase and, therefore, is best eaten on its own, so its own complex mix of flavors can emerge unimpeded.