Rye in a cold kitchen
The kitchen sits at 17 °C from November to March, and everything wheat-based slows to a crawl. Rye does not mind nearly as much. It never builds gluten anyway, so a long, cool ferment only makes the flavour deeper.
The formula
| Ingredient | Grams | Baker's % |
|---|---|---|
| Whole rye flour | 400 | 80 |
| Bread flour | 100 | 20 |
| Water, warm | 410 | 82 |
| Rye sour, ripe | 150 | 30 |
| Salt | 10 | 2 |
| Caraway, toasted | 6 | 1.2 |
How it went
- Mixed everything by hand into a paste. No kneading — with rye it only makes things stickier.
- Four hours on the counter, covered, until the surface cracked slightly.
- Wet hands, shaped into a greased tin, smoothed the top with a spatula.
- Proofed another ninety minutes, then into a 240 °C oven for ten minutes and down to 210 °C for fifty.
The hard part is waiting. Rye needs a full day wrapped in a towel before slicing, otherwise the crumb stays gummy no matter how long it baked.
Next time: a handful of sunflower seeds soaked overnight, and maybe a spoon of dark malt for colour.
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