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Sour Rye Bread
Sour rye bread is made with 40 lbs. dark rye flour and 60 lbs. hard wheat clear. A sour rye in which about 25 quarts of water are used may be made as follows:
Formula Dark rye flour, 10 lbs.
Water, 3½ qts.
Yeast, 1 oz.
Method Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flour and mix it into a dough. Place this dough into a suitable vessel and allow it to ferment from 10 to 12 hours, or until it becomes quite sour.
Sponge Dissolve ½ lb. of yeast in 1 qt. of water and put to one side. Now put 13 qts. of water and the sour dough into a vessel and break it up. Add 25 lbs. of dark rye flour, the dissolved yeast and mix until the mass is smooth. Allow this sponge to ferment until it comes to the second rising, then add 15 lbs. of water and 1¼ lbs. of salt and break up the sponge. After the sponge has been broken, add 52½ lbs. of hard wheat clear. Mix until the dough becomes smooth. The dough should have a temperature of 80 to 82 degrees when mixed.
Fermentation Allow this dough to ferment until it comes to one rising, cut it over and allow it to ferment about 30 minutes, when it can be divided and moulded into loaves.
This is a trade formula written for a bakeshop working in hundred-pound flour units, with the whole batch built on a rye sour started the day before. The proportions translate cleanly to a home scale once you work in baker's percentages rather than pounds.
- The hinge: the sourEverything depends on the first dough — rye flour, water and a trace of yeast left 10 to 12 hours until frankly acidic. If it is only mildly tangy, the finished bread will taste flat and the crumb will be gummy, since acidity is what controls rye's starch-degrading enzymes.
- Scaling downTotal flour is 100 lbs (40 rye, 60 hard wheat clear). Divide the whole formula by 25 for a household batch: about 1 lb 10 oz rye and 2 lbs 6 oz wheat flour, which gives roughly four 1½-lb loaves.
- Hard wheat clearClear flour is the lower-grade stream left after the patent flour is drawn off — darker, high in protein and ash, and standard in rye baking for its strength and flavour. Bread flour is the nearest supermarket substitute; a small proportion of whole wheat brings it closer.
- Dark rye flourWhat the trade called dark rye is closer to today's medium or whole (pumpernickel-grade) rye than to the pale white rye sold for light loaves. Use medium rye if you want the crumb the formula intends.
- Salt and yeast proportionsBakery rye of this type generally carries salt at around 2 per cent of total flour — roughly 2 lbs per 100 lbs, or about 2 tablespoons in the scaled-down batch. Fresh yeast in the sponge is a small fraction of that; the sour is doing much of the leavening work, so err low rather than high.
- WaterThe formula is built around roughly 25 quarts of water to 100 lbs of flour; 25 quarts weighs about 52 lbs, so a little over 50 per cent hydration — a firm, workable rye dough rather than a slack one. Adjust by feel, as rye flours vary widely in absorption.
- Dough temperatureThe stated 80 to 82F is deliberate and worth hitting with a thermometer. Warmer than that and rye ferments away its structure quickly; cooler and the sour's acidity develops too slowly for the short final proof.
- "Second rising" and "cut it over""Second rising" is generally taken to mean the sponge has risen, fallen back and risen again. To cut it over is to fold or knock the dough down before the final short 30-minute rest.
- Baking, which the formula omitsSour rye of this size takes a hot oven — 450F with steam for the first 10 minutes, then 400F to finish, about 35 to 45 minutes total. Bake to an internal 205 to 210F and let the loaves rest at least several hours before cutting; rye crumb sets as it cools.
Sour rye of this kind was the everyday bread of the German, Polish and Jewish bakeries that supplied American cities in the early twentieth century, and formulas of this kind were printed for men working at commercial scale. The two-stage build — a long overnight rye sour, then a sponge, then the final dough with wheat clear added last — is the classic method: rye alone gives little gluten, so the strong clear flour supplies the structure while the rye supplies flavour and the sour supplies the acidity rye needs to bake properly. The reliance on clear flour rather than patent flour is itself a period marker, since roller milling had by then split wheat into graded streams and bakers bought the specific stream their product called for.