Rye Sourdough Bread

Let's bake a rye loaf

What do you picture when you hear rye bread? It is not very familiar in Japan, and many people imagine something dark, dense and hard. In the colder parts of Europe — Germany among them — wheat was difficult to grow, and bread was made from rye instead. Rye does not develop gluten the way wheat does, which is what gives that dark, heavy, chewy loaf its character. And because ordinary baker's yeast will not lift a rye dough, sourdough is used.

Here I use bread flour as the base and blend in rye and whole wheat, which gives a light, moist loaf that is easy to eat while still carrying plenty of rye flavour — approachable even if rye bread is new to you.

Step 1 — Preparing the starter

A sourdough starter is essential for rye bread. Mix flour and water, then keep adding flour and water and stirring for a week or two, and you will raise what is called a sourdough starter. This page picks up from there. If you are starting from scratch, see the article below.

How to start a sourdough starter with rye and whole wheat

Once the culture is alive, keep it in the fridge. The day or the night before you bake, take it out and feed it with flour and water to replace what you are about to use.

What you need:

• Starter90g
• Whole wheat flour25g
• Rye flour20g
• Water (around 20°C)47cc
• Stirrer
• Digital scale

Now for a sourdough loaf with rye and whole wheat. The overall process is the same as the basic sourdough loaf.

Basic Sourdough Bread: A Step-by-Step Recipe

1. To 90g of starter, add 25g of whole wheat flour, 20g of rye flour and 47cc of water, and mix well.

Aim for roughly equal parts: the existing starter on one side, the new flour and water on the other. Once you are used to it and the culture is lively, you can use rather less starter, and there is no need to measure precisely. The flour and water should also be roughly equal, but rye absorbs a lot of water, so matching them exactly makes the starter rather too stiff — I add a little extra water. Playing with the ratios of the different flours is worth doing too.

2. Leave it at room temperature.

How fast it rises depends on temperature and humidity, but bubbles usually appear on the surface within one to two hours, and after several hours it will have roughly doubled.

If you do step 1 on the evening before you bake, you can simply leave it on the counter and go to sleep. By morning it should have doubled, which is just right.

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Step 2 — Making the dough

What you need:

• Starter60g
• Bread flour (Kitanokaori)175g
• Whole wheat flour (Kitanokaori)45g
• Rye flour30g
• Water (around 20°C)170cc
• Salt4g
• Scraper
• Banneton basket (21 × 15 × 8cm)
• Digital scale

1. Sift the measured bread flour, whole wheat and rye into a bowl and mix until evenly combined.

2. Dissolve the salt thoroughly in the water, then pour it into the bowl of flour from step 1. Think of it as bringing the flour and water together rather than kneading them. Start with the scraper, turning the flour up from the bottom of the bowl. Gradually the two become one thing. Once they are more or less combined, use your hands to gather it into a single mass.

3. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour. You are not building gluten by kneading; you are building it by waiting.

4. Now work the starter into the rested dough. Begin by stretching the dough from step 3 out flat. Take hold of an edge and pull — gluten has formed, so it should stretch. Put 60g of starter on the stretched dough, fold it in towards the centre, and keep working it for a while. The hydration is high and it will stick to your hands. Do not worry about it.

5. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour.

6. The first stretch and fold. It is exactly what it sounds like: stretch, then fold. Working around the round of dough, stretch and fold it roughly six to eight times. Not kneading — stretching gently and folding. That is the point.

7. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for one to two hours.

8. The second stretch and fold. The dough has begun to rise, so work more gently than the first time to avoid knocking the air out of it. This time, four to six stretches and folds.

9. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for two to three hours.

10. Using the scraper, ease the dough gently out of the bowl onto a floured surface. Flatten it lightly into a rough square, fold it in from all four sides, shape it loosely, and let it rest for 30 to 60 minutes.

11. Finally, stretch and fold about four more times to build tension across the surface, and shape it into an oval. Dust the top with flour and place it in a cloth-lined banneton, turning it over so the floured surface sits at the bottom.

12. The final proof. Two to three hours at room temperature should roughly double it.

* In hot weather, doing steps 9 and 12 in the fridge keeps the dough from over-proofing and going slack. Fermenting in the fridge does take somewhat longer.

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Step 3 — Baking

What you need:

• Dutch oven (220mm internal diameter, 100mm deep)
• Baking paper
• Razor blade

1. Put the Dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 250°C.

2. Once it is up to temperature, turn the dough out of the basket onto a sheet of baking paper.

3. Score the top with the razor.

4. Take out the Dutch oven, lower the dough in on its paper, put the lid on, and bake at 230°C for 25 minutes.

5. Take the lid off and bake at 240°C for a further 10 minutes.