Its a Long Story, Part One.

Readership of my Bread Blog has waned somewhat, so I thought that I would put this post up here, as it is a bit more general interest.

I make a Rye Sourdough for Oats Health Food Store and Cafe in Brixham. Its Organic of course and uses this fine flour,

My Rye starter has been going for about 18 months now, I made it from my Spelt starter, splitting some off and feeding it Rye Flour until it had developed fully. After this amount of time, there is no real trace of Spelt in it, just a nutty rich flavour.

Here it is straight out of the fridge, where it snoozes between jobs.


Anyhow, my loaf takes around 40 hours to make, if that seems like a long time, its not all work, the most important thing is the time. It actually takes lesss than 30 minutes to do all the steps.

So the method is as follows.

Day one, early, take 225g starter,

Add 113g flour and 113g water,

mix to a paste, cover and leave.

After 6 hours, its starting to get active, can you see the bubbles?

after 12, its really getting going. compare with the picture 2 back.

Then add it to the other ingredients, 900g Rye Flour, 675ml water, 90g Honey, 23g salt and mix well.( I beat in a Kenwood, using the 'K' beater for 13 minutes on low speed)

Leave it for three hours at room temperature,

then put it in the fridge overnight.

Continued tomorrow.