So, my husband grew up with Norweigian and German heritage, and he remembers fondly a bread he called pumpernickel. Unfortunately what he calls pumpernickel and the recipes I am finding are nothing close. He describes a very dense bread, possibly with whole grains in it, that was sourdough for sure (tangy I think is the word he described) brown in colour but not really dark. He said it was "square." Could someone tell me what I am looking for in terms of a recipe? Obviously it has another name, because I'm drawing a blank. His birthday is coming up and I'd like to make him one.
Check out Lutz's Pumperbrot recipe (here). He says similar in flavor to Pumpernickel without the long bake. But it does have a scald at 70 °C for 8–12 hours. That's maybe better? I could probably accomplish that with a slow cooker and a temperature controller.
I am a serious Lutz fanboy but I'm a bit skeptical of some of the formulas where he describes a "Malzbrühstück." In the recipe I did from the other thread, I mentioned I "mashed" for 6 hours at 154F, because his call for 75C for 8-12 hours doesn't make sense to me - that's well past the range where either amylase is active; they're denatured at around 76C. In other words, he's keeping the "mash" for hours, without any enzymatic activity.
That's IF he included active, enzymatic malt. In these couple of formulas, he's only using raw rye flour, without any malt included in this step. As far as I know, rye doesn't self-saccharify. It needs some sort of enzymatic activity to convert starch to sugar. The usual is some sort of actual, enzymatic malt component. It's odd because he actually does do that in other formulas.
So for both those reasons, I don't know why he indicates this type of stage is a "Malzbrühstück." I'm only going on brewing knowledge and could be completely wrong. Interesting subject.
Rye flour is actually quite high in enzyme including amylases. Especially whole rye. So many recipes use that, for example Borodinsky. So it does self-saccharify. And then certainly it needs a long time. If you include active malt the result will be sweeter of course, and the reaction will happen faster. But it's not necessary.
High amylase activity is why you need certain acidity in rye bread and you can't just make it with CY with no souring. During baking the enzymes activate and will destroy the crumb structure, it'll be gummy and sticky. But low pH inhibits amylases, so their activity is reduced before baking.
Well that is total news to me, and that is totally awesome! I love this kind of stuff. Thanks Ilya. One question I have, then - if it's amylases we're talking about, whether endogenous or from malt, etc. - is they do denature right around 76C. That's actually the temp brewers use to "fix" the saccharification, the design between alpha and beta amylase activity and resultant wort. What are your thoughts respecting his formula for rye flour, and 75C x 8-12 hours?
That I don't know, sounds too hot for me! Normally scalds are kept at 63-65°C (well, in bakeries they are huge volumes and they just cool down very slowly). Perhaps in the beginning there is some amylase activity here, and maybe there is some other purpose for such long and such hot incubation... But I don't know what it could be. Maybe there are some other enzymes in the flour that could do something else at these high temperatures?
Yeah, that's odd to me. Beta amylase optima is around 65C+/- and it quickly denatures hotter. I believe it's more heat-labile than alpha amylase, which has an optima range around 69C and quickly denatures past 72C, IIRC. There are no other amylases, again IIRC. Of course alpha will persist for awhile higher, but it quickly goes off past that high. I cannot see any saccharification at 75C, and especially don't get the 8-12 hour stage at this temp. Very curious, because I trust Lutz's work pretty strongly.
Or kept at? It could be a scald cools relatively quickly. I've seen recipes where boiling water is poured over a flour covered sponge and mixed. It still rises.
Yeah, he calls for keeping it at 75C.
Thank you, Paul.
Next question... could it be a typo? Might it be 65°C?
Ha! Good question. I'm going to try to contact the man.
King Arthur Baking has a Wesphalian Rye Bread that is "close" to Pumpernickel with only a 5 hour bake. As written, it is at 58% rye, but substituting in rye chops and rye flakes could boost it to 85% rye. It uses a small amount of yeast, but I believe that could also be substituted with rye sour culture.