Bread experiments Chapter 7: A pocketful of Rye

Recently I've started to bake with rye, as I wanted to have a richer, more malty flavour in my bread. Previously, I also wrote about using wholewheat / rye / grains in baking bread. I became curious about the 'limit' of adding rye to bread, like whether I could go on and increase the rye component in bread dough. That's how I got started!

Just to recap. Bread flour is wheat flour, with high gluten content. Whole grain flours like whole wheat, rye are lower in gluten content. Gluten is what causes bread to stretch and provides the support when proofing.

First off, 100% rye bread!!

I used the below control recipe

150g bread + rye flour
(100% means 150g rye flour, 50% means 75g rye flour + 75g bread flour, and 25% means 38g rye flour +112g bread flour)
100ml water
3-4 g yeast
pinch of salt

1. First mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and add in water gradually until the ingredients come together to form a dough.
2. Knead for 15 minutes. Here is a first look at my 100% rye dough after kneading.

a. With the 100% rye dough, there was not much stretch, and the dough doesn't really bounce back much after kneading for 15 minutes. It was also quite difficult to knead, in that the bits kept falling apart. 

b. With the 50% rye dough, the dough could stretch minimally during kneading. At least it kept into a dough ball. 

c. With the 25% rye dough, it was much softer and stretchier than the other 2 doughs. However, it was not as soft as a normal 100% bread flour dough.

25% rye dough after kneading

3. Proofing. The doughs were left to proof for 1-2 hours. A longer proofing time was required to see if the dough could grow any bigger. Just to ensure that the yeast had done all their work.

a. With the 100% and 50% rye dough, the dough managed to increase in size, despite the lower concentration of gluten. Here is what the 100% rye dough looked like after the first proof. 

b. For the 25% rye dough, the dough increased in size rather readily, within an hour. But still it was smaller compared to a 100% bread flour dough.

4. And it's time to shape the dough and proof it for the second time before we send it to the oven!

a. 100% Rye dough, surprisingly easy to shape. But it had the weird look with little "pockmarks", as you can see below.

b. 50% Rye dough. It felt like a plasticine and had larger "pockmarks" compared to the 100% rye dough. The larger holes could be due to the higher gluten content provided by the bread flour, allowing the dough to stretch a bit more.

c. 25% Rye dough. The dough looks like a regular bread dough and could be shaped like a normal bread dough.

5. Baking. The doughs were baked at 180 degrees C for 30 minutes and cooled completely. 

 100% Rye bread

25% Rye bread

Let's check out what the bread looks like inside!

 100% Rye bread

 50% Rye bread

Both the 100% and 50% rye breads had very closed textures, which could be expected due to the lower gluten content. Also in terms of colour, the 100% rye dough is more yellowish / brown compared to the 50% rye flour.  

25% rye bread

And for the 25% rye bread, the texture was soft. It was like a bread flour (white) bread but with a slightly grey-ish brown colour. I believe the lower gluten content of rye bread also gave it a slightly softer texture, which remained in the bread even until the next day. 

In conclusion, it is still not advisable to go beyond 20-30% in mixing rye flour into bread. One other way I tried was to make a 100% bread flour dough a dust a bit of rye just on the outside. It improves the flavour and gives a darker coloured crust while maintaining the texture of white bread.