Last of the ryes for me this month!

This Jeffrey Hamelman rye bread was made with Bacheldre organic stone ground rye, a much coarser sort of rye than the usual Shipton Mill one I use.  This bread is made with a rye flour soaker and a rye sourdough.

A rye flour soaker?  A soaker is when you pre-soak one of the ingredients of your bread; could be linseeds, could be whole grains, could be an old crust of a nice loaf. In this bread the soaker is a quantity of rye flour, covered in boiling water and mixed up and left overnight.  The boiling water gelatinizes the flour and it has a remarkable effect on the final bread.  It’s no more trouble than making the sourdough the night before and it changes the character of the bread noticeably giving a smooth, sweeter quality to the crumb. I think they must do this a lot in German rye breads as that is what this sort of rye reminds me of.

In Part 2: The crumb shot and my mother’s recipe for Gravad Lax