How Much Rye Flour is Too Much for a Good Sourdough Loaf?

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The question of how much rye flour is too much is certainly one up for much debate in the break baking community. Some bakers like just a small percentage of rye for its flavor, but others want denser, highly nutritional full-grained loaf made with 100% rye packed with seeds and grains added in as soakers. But other recipes for misches (rye flour mixed with splet, whole wheat, and/or bread flour) range from 10–75% rye flour.

Abigail’s Oven sells our Jewish Rye at Farmer’s Markets in Utah. At each of these markets, we offer 7 flavors of Abigail’s Oven REAL™ Sourdough Bread. This is not always the case with the stores that carry our bread. So finding rye at Farmer’s Markets is a pleasant surprise for many of our customers, some of whom are foreign nationals looking for something in bread like what they enjoy back home.

At Abigail’s Oven, Martha’s recipe calls for two parts rye to one part Organic Artisan Bakers Craft bread flour in the bakery’s recipe. And we grind the rye fresh at the bakery. Our mix also includes molasses and cocoa to deepen the color and we add caraway seeds to give it the distinct Jewish deli flavor people expect.

However, because rye is so low in gluten, it degasses easily making our boules flatter and denser than our other loaves. So we are not always with the oven spring we get. For us, it is quite an unpredictable gain.

Still, our Jewish Rye is a top seller in our Farmer’s Markets. This is especially true at SLC’s Winter Market where our customers hail from many nations.

But even at 67% rye in our mix, that is not always what some customers want. They want the denser 100% Rye that we Americans call Pumpernickel. And when it comes to rye bread, there are many choices.

Types of Rye Bread

Classic German Butterbrot — “The Butterbrot sounds very simple, but it is the basis of many morning, in-between, and evening meals. It can be enjoyed just as is, but it is most often topped with additional ingredients, such as wurst, cheese, vegetables, and/or herbs. Sweet toppings, such as jam, fruits, chocolate, or sugar, also works well in making the Butterbrot a sweet treat.”—The German Food Guide

While we may have trouble sometimes at the bakery with rye, small-batch baking at home has worked well for me. My first choice is a 50/50 mix of rye and wheat known throughout Germany as Graubrot (grey Bread). Living there for two years this became my daily bread, just as it was for most Germans in Northern Germany.

It was often served simply as Butterbrot, which many Germans ate any time during the day. School children and workers alike carry a simple sandwich of well-buttered bread on this rye/wheat mixed loaf slice, for a mid-morning or afternoon snack. I ate it most often with butter, cheese, or Nutella for breakfast.

But in the south, that same Misch of rye and wheat becomes a Bavarian Hausbrot flavored with a mix of caraway, anis, fennel, and coriander seeds, which is much like Abigail’s Oven Jewish Rye.

Further North in Germany and in Scandinavian countries, Roggen Vollkornbrot as it is known, is in a class of its own.

Sliced German Whole Rye Sourdough Bread sliced and ready for Abendbrot

In America, we call this bread Pumpernickel. And according to the German Food Guide, this “is a whole grain bread, made with at least 90% whole rye grain. Traditionally, the Roggenvollkornbrot is baked slowly (for 24 hours) to allow the sugars in the bread to caramelize. This gives the bread its dark brown color and its sweet taste… Roggenvollkornbrot is also often made with additional ingredients, such as hazelnuts, oatmeal, or sunflower seeds… [It is a] strongly flavored, very dark brown, the crumb is moist, chewy and a bit crumbly. Great source of many vitamins, minerals, and fiber.”

And as it turns out, Sourdough Pumpernickel is simpler to make than I had supposed. And certainly easier than the steps we recommend in making our other sourdough bread recipes. However, it does require an overnight levain, which is explained below in this recipe, and a decision about the seeds and whole-soaked grains you might want to include in your dough.

Roggen Vollkornbrot (German Whole Rye) Recipe

adapted from The Perfect Loaf, by Maurizio Leo and Einfach Baken, by Marcel Pa

Serving: 1 Ib loaf, usually yields 18 very thin slices
Prep Time: 20–25 minutes
Preferment Time: 12 hours
Bake Time: 85 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Notes: you can customize this loaf with a variety of whole seeds and or grains, such as rye chops, whole rye berries, barley, millet, flax seeds, toasted buckwheat, and/or sesame seeds soaked overnight in boiling water (or dark beer or any of these substitutions: “beef broth, chicken broth, mushroom stock, apple juice, apple cider, root beer, or coke instead of dark beer”, as suggested by TheSpruceEats).
You can also add chopped oats, toasted sunflower seeds, and toasted pumpkin seeds. Include as many or as few as you like, but the first group listed above must be soaked or the seeds and berries will rob water from your dough mixture.
This is traditionally baked in a straight-sided, uncovered Pullman pan. You can also bake it in a standard bread pan, but it will not have the signature rectangular block German rye is known for.

INGREDIENTS

5½ heaping cups/585g of whole grain rye flour
¾ cup/117 grams of rye chops or soaked whole-rye berries (see youtube.com at time stamp 1:20)
3 heaping Tbsp/30g of each mixed seed as listed above. (Soak them together by adding 2 Tbsp / 30g of boiling liquid for each seed/grain addition. The liquid should be subtracted from the water total listed next.)
2⅓ cup /585g of water
2 cups/468g Active Sourdough Starter (This preferment or levain should be made 12 hours in advance using a Tablespoon/16g of an active starter mixed with 2 cups/240g water [taken from the total above] and 2¼ heaping cups/240g rye flour [taken from the total above] )
1¾ tsp/10g of salt (2%)
Spray olive or canola oil

DIRECTIONS

Twelve hours in advance of mixing the dough, prepare a preferment (levain) by combining a Tablespoon/16g of an active starter mixed with 2 cups/240g water [taken from the total above] and 2¼ heaping cups/240g rye flour [taken from the total above] ). Maurizio Leo, says, “This recipe uses a high percentage of pre-fermented flour (the flour in your pre-ferment, the levain) to bring high acidity to the dough from the start. When baking recipes with a high percentage of rye, this large, acidic pre-ferment (in combination with the salt added to the dough) staves off excessive starch breakdown during baking, which can result in a loaf with a dense and gummy interior that has separated from the top crust, forming a large hole running through the loaf.”—Maurizio Leo, The Perfect Loaf: The Craft and Science of Sourdough Breads, Sweets, and More: A Baking Book, (p. 290). Clarkson Potter
If you are adding seeds, rye chops or whole berries (ie. rye chops, whole rye berries, barley, millet, flax seeds, toasted buckwheat, and/or sesame seeds) mix these with boiling liquid at the same time as you are building the preferment. Soaked these overnight.
However, the water content in sunflower and pumpkin seeds suggests toasting rather than soaking. You can do this in a cast iron frying pan on low heat until they are aromatic and slightly golden. Or you can toast them in your oven at 350°F/175°C for 8-10 minutes.
This recipe calls for a stand mixer, though you might do it by hand. With the mixer paddle in place add all the rye flour, water, salt, soaked rye chops/berries, seeds, and preferment (the levain, which should have risen, be filled with bubbles, and has a pleasing earthy aroma).
Mix this for about 10 minutes until the dough lightens in color and gets a bit aerated. You likely will need to scrape the sides of your bowl several times.
Allow the mixture to rest for 15–30 minutes covered.
Meantime spray a light coating of oil into the pan and dust it with flour. Tap out any excess flour
Then scrape the dough out onto a well-floured working surface.
With floured hands, press the dough into a rectangle.
Fold the sides to the length of your baking pan and roll the dough into a tight tube shape that fits into your pan.
With floured hands, press the dough to both ends of the pan and level it with your hands to make it even (I wanted a very smooth top, so I used my dough scraper on its flat side as I pressed the dough into place).
Dust the top with more flour or sprinkle on toasted seeds, which also may need to be pressed into the dough a bit.
Place the pan in a large plastic bag or cover it with a damp towel for 60–90 minutes to proof. The dough should rise to fill the pan and the signature fissures of cracking should form across the top as the gasses beneath develop and push it up.
While the dough is proofing, preheat your oven to 475°F/245°C.
Before baking the bread in the oven, prepare a pan and a cup of boiling water to steam the oven. I suggest placing a metal baking pan on a shelf beloved the rack the bread will be baked on a few minutes before loading the oven. (But note this, I tried a glass pan once and the water, though boiling, still shattered the pan when I dumped the water in.
Bake the bread in the steamed oven for about 15 minutes, then vent the steam and reduce the heat to 375°F/190°C for another hour.
Cool the bread on a wire rack wrapped in a clean towel for 24 hours to develop flavor and insure no gumminess in the interior when slicing. This bread’s flavor actually improves each day for the next three days, so if you are not in a rush, cure it longer.

Living in Germany fifty years ago, I came to enjoy rye bread. And while the mixed rye or Mischbrot was our daily bread, when it came to the evening meal, German Whole Rye (Roggenvollkornbrot) was more often used. This loaf is very hearty, packed with rye flavor, and so dense that it is nearly a meal in itself.