Bread Matters (19 page)

I use the term ‘cycle of refreshment’ to describe the time it takes for a refreshed sourdough starter to reach an optimum balance of fermenting yeasts and lactobacilli. In the early stages of a refreshment, it is likely that yeast reproduction and fermentation will predominate, with the development of lactic acid bacteria coming along more slowly. You should normally use a refreshed sourdough to make a final dough when it has developed sufficient flavour and is likely to achieve the most effective aeration of the dough. I sometimes recommend a ‘mini-refreshment’, which is an interim addition of flour to a sourdough, designed to prompt a short-term upsurge in yeast activity. This can be useful if the sourdough is too acidic for your liking and seems to take ages to raise your bread under normal conditions.

Production sourdough/production leaven

This is the middle stage in the process of using a sourdough to make bread, as in:

starter > production sourdough > final dough > baked bread

In most sourdough systems, the majority of refreshed sourdough is incorporated into the final dough (to act as its yeast, as it were) but a residue is held back to become the starter for the next day’s bread. Then all the starter is incorporated into the production sourdough and is thereby completely ‘refreshed’. There is no need to maintain a separate starter with its own ‘feeding’ requirements, because a piece of the refreshed production sourdough does that job automatically. This is the simplest and most economical way of managing sourdough baking.

Of course, adjustments are required if you are increasing or decreasing the amount you bake and you may well end up with odd amounts of old starter. For more information on how to look after sourdoughs between baking sessions, see page 204.

Culture shock

It is safest to make sourdough in a plastic tub with a press-on lid. If the fermentation gets a bit lively, the worst that can happen is a loud pop from the kitchen in the middle of the night.

I was a little alarmed to see in a couple of recent recipe books pictures of glass preserving jars containing sourdough starters, with no warning not to seal the lids down with the steel clips. The gas produced by a rye fermentation (indeed any fermentation) can be considerable and, even if the jar remains intact, it could easily produce a messy eruption when the pressure is released.

I once made kvas, a Russian ‘small beer’ fermented from rye bread crusts, in some old cider flagons. One exploded with such force that it sent shards of glass right through a roll of aluminium foil.

Starting a rye sourdough

The ideal temperature for fermenting a rye sour is around 30°C. This can be difficult to maintain unless you have a hot water tank or airing cupboard. Lower temperatures will make the process take longer. Try to create a space on a shelf above a range cooker or a radiator that holds the required temperature, but be careful not to overdo it. There is a pronounced ‘window’ of reproductive activity in natural yeasts around 28-30°C; a few degrees lower
or higher
and the process slows down.

A cheap electric plant propagator is a simple way to provide a constant temperature for both developing a sourdough and proving bread. Use a thermometer to check the actual temperature being delivered.

Day 1

25g Wholemeal (dark) rye flour

50g Water (at 40°C)

75g Total

Mix the flour and water into a sloppy paste, preferably in a plastic tub with a lid. Press the lid down, or cover the bowl with a polythene bag, in order to stop the mixture skinning over or drying out. Keep this mixture as near to a constant 30°C as you can manage.

Day 2

25g Wholemeal (dark) rye flour

50g Water (at 40°C)

75g Starter from Day 1

150g Total

Stir the fresh flour and water into the mixture, cover and return it to a warm place.

Day 3

25g Wholemeal (dark) rye flour

50g Water (at 40°C)

150g Starter from Day 2

225g Total

Stir the fresh flour and water into the old starter, which may already show signs of frothing. If there is a layer of greyish liquid on top, don’t worry: just stir it in with the other ingredients.

Day 4

25g Wholemeal (dark) rye flour

50g Water (at 40°C)

225g Starter from Day 3

300g Total

Add the fresh flour and water. After a further day, you should have a sourdough that has bubbled up and subsided and smells fruity. If you dip a finger in and lick it, the sour should taste mildly acidic.

That completes the preparation stage and you should now have a viable rye sourdough starter. (If you are worried that your starter doesn’t seem to be doing much, there are some suggestions on page 181 that apply equally to wheat leavens and rye sours.)

From this point, you need to attend to your starter only when you want to make bread. As you will see, 300g is rather more than you need to make a large rye loaf. At this stage, because the starter is young, I would recommend keeping the whole amount, even though you probably do not need it all. This will give your starter time to gain in acidity. However, if you find that you have accumulated much more starter than you are likely to use according to the recipes that follow, you may want to consider reducing your stock. You can, of course, throw some away but there are more constructive alternatives:

• Give some away.
  
• Use some (a maximum of 10 per cent) in a wheat bread dough and enjoy the effect on gluten structure and flavour.
  
• Freeze some in case anything happens to your main sourdough. Yeasts do lose some viability in the freezer, but using a frozen sourdough is still much quicker than having to start from scratch.
  

Wholemeal rye flour (sometimes called ‘dark’ rye flour) has a rich population of yeasts and lactobacilli and a sourdough made with it can ferment with great vigour. For that reason, only a small amount of original starter is needed to seed a production sourdough. The ratio is 1:10, i.e. one part starter makes ten parts production sourdough. In wheat leavens, this ratio is normally 1:3.

When it comes to using a sourdough to make bread, you should think of it as an alternative to bought-in yeast. You need much more of it, of course, because the natural yeasts are far less concentrated than the industrial ones. But the principle is similar and it follows that the less sourdough you put into your dough, the slower it will rise, and vice versa.

Interest in rye bread is growing in the UK, even as it declines in traditional rye-eating areas such as Germany and Poland. The main reason appears to be the desire to avoid eating wheat. But 100 per cent rye breads are well worth trying in their own right. For flavour, texture, digestibility and nutritional quality, they are hard to beat.

Rye and sourdough are an ideal combination. Not only is rye flour probably the best medium for starting a spontaneous sourdough but rye bread baking actually needs sourdough. If you simply substitute rye flour for wheat flour in a conventional recipe, expect a brick. Rye needs an acid dough in order to inhibit the excessive amounts of alpha-amylase enzyme typically found in rye flour; too much of this enzyme means sticky and unworkable dough. More importantly, sourdough enables the pentosans in rye flour to absorb more water, producing a softer dough that keeps better after baking.

Here is what you need to know to make superb rye bread:

General notes about all-rye breads

Kneading and dough consistency

The key to all breads with more than 50 per cent rye flour is that the dough must be very soft. If you try to make a rye dough into a kneadable consistency, the end result will be close to concrete. Make it as soft as loose mashed potato and the bread will rise well and keep for many days. Prolonged kneading is unnecessary, since rye gluten does not develop the same elasticity as wheat.

Rising

No period of first rising is needed because the gluten in rye does not need the same ripening treatment as wheat gluten and there is plenty of flavour from the high proportion of sourdough. The relatively long proof time provides a further opportunity for flavour to develop.

Shaping

Rye gluten has none of the elasticity of wheat, so the most that can be expected of an all-rye dough is that it takes on the shape of its container, whether this be a baking tin or the basket in which it is proved before being baked on a tray or pizza stone. There is no point shaping rye other than to give it a smooth surface and to fit it into the tin or basket. Once there, it tends to find its own level.

Proof

All-rye doughs do not expand as much as wheat doughs because rye gluten does not form a coherent and elastic network. Breads made with wholemeal (dark) rye flour will expand by about 50-75 per cent during proof. Those made with light rye flour (which has had some of the bran removed) will expand by 75-100 per cent.

Baking time

All-rye doughs are soft and wet because rye flour has the ability to absorb more water than wheat. This, and the relative absence of available sugars in a rye dough (to support the Maillard reactions that create crust colour), make it desirable to bake all-rye breads in a very hot oven, at least for the first ten to 15 minutes. You will need to bake rye bread for longer than wheat bread because more water has to be evaporated from the wet rye dough.

Storage and eating

Because rye breads retain significantly more moisture than wheat breads, they keep well. Their crumb can be very gummy immediately after baking, so it is advisable to leave them for at least a day before attempting to cut them. After two or three days, the flavour of sourdough rye bread becomes noticeably more pronounced, the crumb darkens a little and the bread becomes more easily digestible.

Russian Rye Bread

This is one of the easiest breads to make, once you have created a viable sourdough. Although in Russia, the standard ‘black’ bread (which is actually a grey colour) usually contains 10-30 per cent wheat flour, using all rye flour is quite legitimate. It has the advantage of making this a bread suitable for people who wish to avoid both baker’s yeast and wheat.

By the way, be wary of any truly black bread that you see. Unless it is a pumpernickel-type bread that has gained an authentic dark colour by very slow baking over many hours, the blackness may well come from an artificial colouring such as caramel. Ignore, too, recipes that call for coffee or cocoa powder in rye bread: again, these are alien ingredients, presumably included for reasons of appearance, not authenticity.

Makes 1 large or 2 small loaves

Stage 1: production sourdough

50g Rye Sourdough Starter (page 160)

150g Wholemeal (dark) rye flour

300g Water (at 40°C)

500g Total

Mix everything together into a very sloppy dough at about 30°C. Cover and leave in a warm place for 12-24 hours. Then use this production sourdough to make your final dough. If you are going to make only one sourdough, make this one. It can be the basis of many simple, delicious and nutritious breads.

Stage 2: final dough

440g Production Sourdough (above)

330g Rye flour (light or wholemeal)

5g Sea salt

200g Water (at 40°C)

975g Total

By using 440g of production sourdough in the final dough, there is about 50g left to retain as a future starter (a few grams usually get lost on the side of bowls etc).

Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly. The dough should be soft and far too wet to handle on the worktop. Using wet hands, scoop the dough up and drop it into a well-greased large bread tin (or 2 smaller ones). Cover loosely with a polythene bag, inflating and tying its neck to prevent contact with the dough. Final proof will take anything from 2-8 hours, depending on the vigour of the sourdough and the temperature in your kitchen. The dough will be ready to bake when it has risen appreciably and feels quite fragile and unresistant to the (very gentle) touch of a finger. If the dough slightly more than half filled the tin before proof, it is ready for the oven when it has risen to the top of the tin.

Bake in as hot an oven as you can muster (230-240°C ideally), reducing the temperature by 20°C after 10-15 minutes. Typical baking time will be 50-60 minutes for a large loaf, 35-45 minutes for small ones. Rye bread holds a great deal of water, so if you are in any doubt, give it a bit longer in the oven.

Leave to cool completely before wrapping in cellophane or a polythene bag. Rest the loaf for a day before eating. The flavour develops significantly with keeping, though the crumb will begin to harden after 5-7 days. The acidity of the sourdough should keep this bread free of mould for many days.

Seeded Rye Bread

This is a simple variation on Russian Rye Bread, which uses a lower percentage of production sourdough in the final dough. There is still enough to raise the dough but the loaf has a milder flavour. The buttery texture of sunflower seeds and the crunch of pumpkin seeds make this loaf not just nutritious but a very satisfying eat. It’s a bit like a rather indulgent pumpernickel.

For an original canapé or nibble, slice the bread very thinly and roll the slices up with a filling of pickled or smoked fish or hummus.

If it suits you, you can use the production sourdough for this bread only 4-6 hours after refreshment. This maximises the yeast activity and reduces the acidity of the dough.

Makes 1 small loaf

160g Production Sourdough (page 165)

240g Rye flour (light or wholemeal)

5g Sea salt

50g Pumpkin seeds

50g Sunflower seeds