One hundred percent rye, no wheat, no pan support from a batter-like dough, and a 75-minute bake. This is the slowest entry in the ledger: fifteen minutes of mixing, a 16-hour rye sour, and a loaf that is better on day three than on day one. It is also the only bread here that keeps for a full week without any loss of quality.
Fifteen minutes of mixing, and no gluten development
Mix 500 g whole rye, 475 g water at 35 °C, 175 g rye sour at 1:3:3, and 12 g salt with a dough hook for 4 minutes, then by hand with a wet spatula for 10 more. There is no windowpane test for rye and no point looking for one; the dough should be a thick, sticky paste that holds a mark when you drag a finger through it.
| Stage | Detail |
|---|---|
| Sour build | 1:3:3 rye, 16 h at 20 °C, honeycomb surface |
| Mix | 4 min machine, 10 min spatula, 95% hydration |
| Bulk | 1.5 h at 26 °C, 20% rise |
| Cold retard | 20 h at 4 °C in the tin |
| Bake | 220 °C, 15 min steam, 75 min total, then 24 h rest |
Pricking instead of scoring, and the long bake
The top is smoothed with a wet scraper and pricked all over with a skewer — a rye loaf at 95% hydration has no surface tension to hold a cut, and any slash will seal within seconds. The bake is long because the loaf is dense and full of water: 15 minutes of steam, then 60 minutes dry at a lower 200 °C. Internal temperature should reach 98 °C.
Slicing and the day-three rule
Rye starch retrogrades and then settles. Sliced at four hours, this loaf is sticky and tastes of nothing. Sliced at 24 hours it cuts cleanly into 3 mm slices and the sourness has developed. Sliced at day three it is at its best, and it stays there for four more days wrapped in paper.
- Crumb rating 3/5: dense, moist, slices thin, keeps a week.
- Weighs about 1.1 kg. It is a loaf for a household, not for one person.
- Freeze in half-loaves; it thaws without any loss of texture.
The 24-hour rest is not a suggestion. This loaf genuinely tastes of almost nothing at hour four and tastes complete at hour twenty-four, and no technique shortens that.
Sources / 参考来源
Published reference works consulted for this log: