Monday, June 25, 2018

100% rye sourdough bread

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First of all - to give credit where credit is due, I've tried the bread recipes from these websites:
https://www.ilovecooking.ie/recipe/100-rye-sourdough/ , https://nourishedkitchen.com/100-rye-sourdough-baking-rye-sourdough-boule-recipe/ , and https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/recipe/sourdough-recipes/no-knead-rye-sourdough/ .

They're all very similar.  You take your sourdough starter, add rye flour and salt.  Add sweetener if you feel like it.  Mix it (it's more like a batter than a dough), let it rise in the pan and bake it.  The proportions I've been using:

1 cup rye sourdough starter
3/4 cup water
3 cups rye flour
1 tsp salt

Mix together.  It's like a thick batter.  Grease your loaf pan and put it in the pan.  Put the loaf pan in a large freezer bag so it doesn't dry out.  Let it rise until it's up to the top of the loaf pan.  Bake at 375 for 1 hour.

Now, the rest of the story:
to make rye sourdough starter - use filtered or bottled water (not tap water because it has chlorine), stir in about 1 TLB of rye flour for each 1/3 cup of water.  Let it sit on the counter top.  The second day, add another TLB of rye flour.  By the third day, it should be bubbly.  Then it's ready to use.  From this point onwards, just use most of it for your bread, saving a little bit.  Add more water (now I use tap water) and flour.  It's good to go.  I keep it in the fridge and bring it out to warm up just before making my bread.  When it's working right, it smells like apples to me.