After a few tries to create an active starter, I finally got a 100% whole rye starter to double or a bit more reliably after 12 hours at room temp. I refresh it at 1:10:10 per "The Rye Baker".
When I use it with formulas from other sources that specify a more typical wheat starter, it looks as if the rye doesn't quite behave the same way. I reread Hamelman's section on rye in "Bread". He writes that a levain made with rye starter should probably ferment 14-16 hours at room temp, vs 12 hrs for the formulas with wheat starters, And, that the rye doughs need to be handled more gently to avoid breaking the pentosans and dumping lots of water into the dough, making it gummy.
Can anyone offer some additional insights on timings, temps, mixing, shaping, etc, that are different with a rye starter vs wheat?
Thanks
I find that my Rye starter is often more active than a regular wheat starter (not sure about whole wheat starter however). I keep both a 100% rye and a 10% rye 90% bread flour starter. I find the rye provides an extra kick to the white and is super strong on it's own.
As for the gentle handling. I find that Rye becomes gummy when working with it mostly because of the lack of gluten in that flour. If used at less than 50% in a recipe the gluten from the other flower helps support it. However, even a 50/50 mix of whole wheat and rye will be tough to work with due to the lower gluten.
There is a 100% rye bread from Patrick Ryan that really shows what I mean. It's a dense bread that does not behave at all like you expect bread to behave. Well worth the watch if you are interested in rye.
If a 100% rye starter is more active than wheat or wheat/rye blends it's just as well that I am using 100% rye starter.
My question is about using a rye starter in a largely wheat bread with maybe a little bit of rye flour. I have made 100% rye discard bread a couple of times. It's a great base for lox or other smoked fish or spreads and I don't have to worry about shaping or scoring or oven spring. And I can fit a loaf pan in the toaster oven.
If I can improve my technique I would like to bake something like 70% whole wheat plus a rye starter.
That's totally something you can do. I often make a sourdough that is bread flour and then the 100% rye starter adding rye to the overall flavor profile. I go back and forth between the two starters I keep on a weekly basis just for variety more than anything else. That said there is absolutely no reason that you couldn't make any bread using a 100% rye starter. Many books talk about how to convert a white starter to 100% whole wheat or 100% rye and back again. As long as you are accounting for the flour in the starter as part of your overall flour in the recipe you should be good to go.
Whole wheat breads are difficult to make (or at least compared to breads based on only bread flour that is not whole wheat). Peter Reinhart wrote a whole grain bread book that uses some methods to get the most flavor out of whole grains and makes the breads more manageable for a home baker. Many will have a soaker or some kind of prefermented dough like a starter and then a spike of commercial yeast to help with the final rise on day 2. Made a sprouted wheat bread a few weeks back that was excellent.
As for wheat and rye, the bread I made this weekend was 50/50 whole wheat and rye from the 100% rye starter and it came out good...dense but good. Again, lack of gluten and much closer to your discard bread I'm sure. If you want something lighter and softer I'd highly recommend looking into the whole grain bread book.
You can always make a levain so as to bring as little rye flour into your white bread as possible. Just make an offshoot starter just for one bake, by feeding a small amount of rye starter with white flour in a separate jar.
If you use not more than say 5% total flour in the starter, I don't think you'll notice any rye flavour in the bread at all though, no need to make a levain.