Simple Rye Sourdough Bread: The Recipe I Settled On

A rye loaf I baked the other day came out so well that I want to set the recipe down here as my working reference version. Say rye bread and most people picture something dark, dense and hard. Bake it this way and you get something else: light, moist, easy on the palate, with the rye coming through clearly. Very approachable, even if rye bread is unfamiliar to you.

This page does not cover raising the sourdough starter itself. If you need to start from there, see the article below.

How to start a sourdough starter with rye and whole wheat

The night before you bake, feed the starter — discard the top half and stir in equal weights of flour and water — so that it is thoroughly fresh. For this loaf I used a mixture of my bread flour starter and my rye starter.

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Making the dough

Ingredients:

• Starter (bread flour)30g
• Starter (rye and whole wheat)30g
• Bread flour (Kitanokaori)180g
• Rye flour50g
• Whole wheat flour (Kitanokaori)20g
• Water (around 20°C)170cc
• Salt4g

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

2. Add all of the starter and the salt to the water and stir until dissolved. It is ready when the water is uniformly cloudy and slightly thickened.

3. Pour the starter and salt water from step 2 into the bowl of flour. 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.

4. Once it has come together, cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes. You are not building gluten by kneading; you are building it by waiting.

5. 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 but fully, and folding. That is the point.

6. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for one hour.

7. 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.

8. Cover the bowl and leave it in the fridge for two hours.

9. The third stretch and fold. The dough is still rising, so work even more gently than the second time to avoid knocking the air out. About four stretches and folds this time.

10. Cover the bowl and leave it in the fridge for two hours.

11. 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 about 30 minutes.

12. 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.

13. The final proof. About five hours in the fridge should roughly double it.

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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. Take the dough out of the fridge while it heats.

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 20 minutes.

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

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The article below covers the basics of sourdough, with video. Worth a look if this is your first attempt at a rye loaf.

Basic Sourdough Bread: A Step-by-Step Recipe