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German Pumpernickel Bread
Formula Clear flour, 75 lbs.
Coarse rye flour, 75 lbs.
Water, 80 to 83 lbs.
Salt, 2½ lbs.
Yeast, 3/4 lb.
Sour dough, 9 lbs.
Method Dissolve the yeast in 3 qts. of water and place to one side. Put 48 lbs. of water, the sour dough, dissolved yeast, 45 lbs. clear flour and 45 lbs. coarse rye meal into the mixer and mix until smooth. Put this sponge into a suitable vessel and allow it to ferment until it comes to the second rising. Now put the balance of the water and the salt into the mixer and stir to dissolve the salt, then add the sponge and break it up. Now add the balance of the clear flour and coarse rye meal and mix until the dough is smooth. The dough should be very stiff. The dough should have a temperature of about 80 to 82 degrees when mixed. Allow this dough to come to a half rising, when it may be divided and moulded into round loaves. Allow these loaves to rise about 15 minutes when they may be made into any desired shape and placed on pans individually or in groups. This bread may also be baked on the hearth if desired.
It is advisable to wash the bread with water before it goes into the oven.
This is a bakery formula written for a 150-pound flour batch and a steam-tube oven, not a home recipe. Everything scales cleanly by baker's percentage, but a few of the ingredient names mean something different now.
- Scaling it downThe formula is 50 percent clear flour, 50 percent coarse rye, 54 percent water, 1.7 percent salt, 0.5 percent yeast and 6 percent sour dough on total flour. At 1/100 scale that is 12 oz clear flour, 12 oz rye meal, 13 oz water, about 2 tsp salt, a scant 1/8 oz fresh yeast and 1.4 oz starter — roughly two loaves.
- Clear flourNot a white bread flour in the modern sense. Clear is the lower-grade stream left after the patent flour is drawn off: high in protein, greyish, slightly bitter, and traditionally used in rye breads precisely because the colour did not matter. High-gluten bread flour is the nearest substitute, and first clear can still be bought from mill suppliers.
- Coarse rye flour or mealThe text uses both terms for the same thing. This means a coarse, dark, whole-grain rye grind — what is sold today as pumpernickel meal or coarse rye meal, not light or medium rye flour.
- Sour doughA mature rye sour, kept and refreshed in the shop. At 6 percent it is a flavour and acidity contribution rather than the main leavening, which is the yeast. A stiff rye starter fed twice and used at peak will do the job.
- YeastThree-quarters of a pound across 150 lbs of flour means compressed fresh yeast. Divide by three for instant dry yeast, which at this scale is a very small quantity — weigh it rather than measuring by spoon.
- Dough temperatureThe formula asks for a finished dough of about 80-82F, the only temperature it gives, and it is worth hitting. Rye ferments faster than wheat; adjust the water temperature to land in range.
- "Second rising" and "half rising"Shop language for fermentation stages rather than clock times. 'Second rising' is usually taken to mean the sponge has risen and fallen once and risen again; 'half rising' to mean the dough is divided part-way through its proof, while it still has structure to hold shaping.
- OvenNo temperature is given because bakers judged their own ovens. Load hot, around 450F, with steam, and drop to 400F to finish; these are stiff, dense loaves and want a long bake — an hour or more for a good-sized round, to an internal 205–210F.
- The water washThe formula calls it advisable to wash the loaves with water before they go into the oven. Water on the surface gelatinises the surface starch and encourages the glossy, slightly leathery crust associated with this bread. Rye loaves also cut best after a full day's rest, once the crumb has set.
Baker's Weekly was a trade journal, and this formula is aimed at an American commercial bakery — hence the 150-pound flour batch, the mixer, and the option to bake on the hearth or in pans. What it produces is not Westphalian pumpernickel, which is nearly all coarse rye, unleavened by yeast, and steam-baked for the better part of a day until the sugars caramelise the crumb almost black. It is the American shop version: half high-gluten clear flour for structure, half coarse rye for flavour, yeast with a rye sour behind it, and a conventional bake — a hybrid loaf, dark but made for a trade that bought bread daily rather than by the fortnight. The name itself is German and its origin is disputed; the derivation from pumpern plus Nickel, an earthy joke about the bread's effect on the digestion, is the one usually repeated, but it is traditional rather than documented.