So, I screwed this up in all sorts of ways. And the great thing is: it's still delicious.
I set out to bake a Riga rye -- which, done right, should be sleek, dark-crusted, & high-rise (here's Ilya's fantastic bake for comparison.) So what went wrong?
Well, just about everything:
- I was worried about leaving my pale malt scald in the oven at 65C while I was at work. So two hours after scalding, I mixed everything together (scald and sourdough sponge) and left it on the counter as I went about my day. This probably meant that the pale rye malt didn't activate. Fourteen hours later, when I got back to the bread, the mix had relaxed and grown and had a strange but enticing sweet n sour flavor. So I moved forward.
- I decided to add yeast to the final dough -- but all I found were some dirty packets of active dry in the fridge. Though they were well within their use-by dates, the bloom on the packet I opened was awfully feeble -- so the yeast spike likely accomplished little, if anything. Also, I found I had underestimated the hydration of my sponge -- and needed to add maybe 50g of water to get the final dough to come together. Indeed, in hindsight, it feels like it might have been useful to add even more water.
- I preheated the oven to 260C (Rus Brot calls for an initial blast at 300C but this was as high as I felt comfortable pushing the oven) but I worried about baking it straight on a sheet plan because I feared the pan would warp. Instead, I kept the sheet pan over the Dutch Oven I baked in (because the handle on the Dutch Oven was one of those old plastic tops that would melt at that temp) ... This no doubt impeded the airflow and meant that the DO never got up to temp.
- I baked it for 10 minutes in that underheated DO, with the sheet pan over it (the recipe didn't call for steam...so why did I do this? I have no idea), then removed the pan, turned the heat down to 190C and baked it for an additional 30 minutes.
So: this rye awry is definitely not a Riga rye ... yet, in spite of my best efforts to make it a total failure, it's super-flavorful and I'm enjoying eating it.
Rob
Every story with its twists and turns brings out a different character of rye. I, too, make all sorts of adjustments to recipes as I go; it's meant to be fun. Glad it turned out delicious.
-Lin
thx, Lin. baking bread is a story you can eat ... how great is that
If you are making scalds on a regular basis you really should invest in a temperature controller. Not that they are expensive.
"If you are making scalds on a regular basis you really should invest in a temperature controller."
You raise an interesting point, Suave; I think you are impying that the scald should have a holding time at maybe 150F or so, after making it. How long would you suggest?
I imagine many bakers would just pour boiling water on the flour, mix and leave to cool (as I have often done!) - but perhaps this isn't the right way to do it. I guess in a bakery, things would be different, because the bulk of the scald would keep it hotter for longer.
Lance
Indeed, Lance, most of the recipes (Rus Brot/The Rye Baker, etc) call for keeping a pale rye malt scald in a steady 65C/150F environment for the entire time.
Rob
I used to do boiling water, and advocated it, and actually gotten good enough at it that the scald would convert more often that it would cook into a porridge. However some 10 years ago I saw the light and switched to exact temperature control, and ever since I mix the scald at ~40-50 °C, pop it into water bath and hold for whatever the recipe the recipe calls for + a bit more to account for the time it takes the scald to warm up. So maybe up to 2.5 hours if the recipe call for 2. With a bread like this, where the original chart calls for 3-5 hours hold and 5-8 hours cooling I tend to take longer holding time and extend by about half of cooling time, resulting in 5 + 3-4, 8-9 hours of hold at 65 °C.
... my apt is really tiny & -- perhaps to my detriment -- I'm not a gadget guy
What a crazy lovely story, thanks for writing about it. I think your failures are way more successful than mine!
-Jon
Thanks, Jon. I lucked out this time. I just haven't posted about my total failures yet.