Hello!
I've been lurking on this site for too long so I thought I'd jump in with a self-introduction! First, thanks to all: your shared insights and advice have been tremendously helpful...
I've always loved baking, ever since my mom got me started baking bread and cookies and bars with her amid cold New England (USA) winters as I was growing up. My father immigrated to the US from Germany in the 50s, and when I was fresh out of college I had a chance to spend a summer back in Bavaria with relatives there. I still miss the breads there. Lately I've been day-dreaming about a bread tour of European bakeries... (Anyone know of one?)
Now, many decades later, I've come back to bread making. I started with family recipes and with raisin bread as an old comfort food recipe. Then moved to some yeast experiments -- pizza doughs and pain a l'ancienne have been two favorites. Then sourdoughs, which is where I am currently.
I've been baking Hamelman's Vermont sourdoughs to try to get the hang of working with the stuff again--kneading and folding and timing... I'll attach a picture here of the VT Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain I've been baking. Still working on shaping and getting the proofing timing right.
What I'm really excited about, though, is exploring rye breads. I'm going to work through Hamelman's rye recipes next. Any tips and advice are welcome!
Glad you joined us! I can see you are showing early signs of becoming a bread geek (like many of us). :)
If you want some of the best authentic rye bread recipes, you've got to check out Stan's site at The Rye Baker. He has all kinds of wonderful recipes and tips there. Or you could buy his book. :)
I've had great success with Peter Reinhart's sourdough rye from "Crust and Crumb". It has a wonderful complex flavour from a three stage starter build with each stage (and then the final dough) retarded overnight in the fridge. Also, Emmanuel Hadjiandreou's "How to Make Sourdough" has some excellent 100% rye recipes.
Have fun! And don't forget to post or blog the results for us, okay?
I'm definitely geeking out here. Was just charting price comparisons for rye flour from different vendors as I get ready to stock up. =)
Thanks for the welcome and the recommendations! As it happens, I just ordered Stan's book a few days ago, and it's should arrive tomorrow or Friday. Can't wait to get a-hold of it and start reading...
More folks getting their geek on is always a good thing!
While you're playing with the rye, you might want to keep this one in your hip pocket for those days when you just want to put together a high percentage rye with whatever you have on hand: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15736/mini039s-favorite-rye-ratio
I've always had great success following this one --- with 80-100% rye, using up to 30% adders such as dried fruits or nuts, and using up to 30% altus in either the leaven or the dough. It has invariably worked out as a great loaf for me.
Great call on picking up The Rye Baker --- I hope you have a blast reading and baking your way through it, and please do share your bakes with us!
Keep baking happy!
Mini's posts have been a tremendous help, but I'd missed that one. Many thanks for sharing it! Just added it to a growing collection of bookmarks.
The whole thread is helpful too--one of the things I've been trying to get a handle on is how to manage a rye starter. I have one going now, and it's lively, but I'd been wondering if I always needed to be doing multi-stage refreshes before a bread bake, or if I could do a single-stage refresh and still have it doing a good enough job for the final dough. That conversation helps answer the Q I think...
Thanks again!