Rye sourdough, the most beloved and obedient! Author Elena Zheleznyak
🔗Those who are bogged down in baking cannot survive for a long time without rye sourdough. This is categorical, but about me I began to get acquainted with sourdough bread with rye sourdough, I learned to breed it and bake non-sour wheat and sour rye. Therefore, rye sourdough for me is like returning to my native land. It is especially joyful in my soul, because the parting was long - I baked with wheat sourdough, then mostly wheat bread with bacon ferment, and never baked rye. The soul yearned for the aroma of rye bread and the bright sour smell of rye sourdough, and even for the daily routine - feeding! As I wrote recently, I got organic rye and, as a result, rye flour, and since there is rye flour, then it should be sourdough and rye bread!
I take out the rye sourdough in 3-5 days, on the fifth or sixth day I already try to bake wheat bread, for rye it is still not sour enough. On freshly brewed sourdough, rye bread turns out to be sticky and finely porous, and these are sure signs that the sourdough has not gained acidity. In general, it is believed that rye sourdough is more sour and aromatic than wheat, and therefore sour wheat bread is obtained on it. Honestly, I still cannot determine whether this is so, I only know for sure that with rye sourdough, just like with wheat, you can bake excellent completely non-sour wheat bread and even buns.
In winter, to feed my rye sourdough, I take the same amount of flour and water and adhere to 100% moisture, in summer I make the consistency much thicker so that it does not ferment so quickly. If we compare it with wheat, it is in many ways more hardy and unpretentious, at least this is how it works out for me: it is removed much faster (rye - a maximum of a week, wheat - two or three), does not ooze so quickly and may well survive, if I forget to feed her once or twice. My wheat leaven in similar conditions became sluggish and depressed, this greatly affected the bread. The rye, despite the Spartan conditions, always raised the dough with a bang and quickly recovered. But, if before I fed it, so to speak, by eye (or as God puts it on my soul), focusing on the consistency, now I feed my new rye sourdough with scales, accurately weighing the amount of water, flour and starter. It was the wheat leaven that taught me the accuracy, as it turned out, the scales do not add fuss, on the contrary, they make the feeding process easier and faster, and the leaven itself is more stable.
Now my sourdough is fed once a day, each time I pinch off 10 grams from it, put it in a clean jar, add 25 grams. water and 25 gr. flour, mix and close the lid until the next feeding.To start removing the starter, you need very little - 50 grams. water and 50 gr. whole grain rye flour. You need to mix flour and water in a half-liter jar and leave for a day in a dark, warm place. A dark place is not strategically important, just like that, the sourdough can will surely be protected from direct sunlight. Light will not do anything to her, but the sun's rays can greatly heat the jar and literally boil the leaven.
Depending on the conditions of keeping, the sourdough will contain one or another ratio of lactic acid bacteria and yeast. This is influenced by the temperature regime, the moisture content of the starter culture and the flour itself. The coarser the flour and the higher the grain yield, the better it is for breeding the sourdough and ferments better. In other words, whole grain flour has a higher enzymatic activity than flour, purified from bran and most of the grain.In addition, the composition of the microflora of the starter culture is strongly influenced by temperature and humidity. Even if we take the same water and the same flour, but mix two leavens of different consistency and let them mature at different temperatures, we get two different leavens with different “inner world” and different properties. This means that they will have a different flavor and different lifting force, which can be reflected in the bread. At a temperature close to 30-40 degrees, the leaven will turn out to be more acidic with a large number of lactic acid bacteria, less yeast, at 20-22 degrees it will contain more yeast. In a similar way, the consistency also affects the yeast content in the leaven: there is more yeast in a liquid leaven, but about the same or slightly less lactic acid yeast than in a thick one.
At the same time, it is impossible to determine exactly how many bacteria and yeast are in the homemade sourdough. Only by trial, error and observation can we make any reliable conclusions about how active the leaven is, and what its lifting power is, whether it is acidic and aromatic enough. And for this you need a little - go into the kitchen, weigh the flour and water, and then mix.
The first day... Half-liter jar, 50 gr. water (I take boiled cold, sometimes I do not disdain tap water, if the kettle is hot), 50 gr. whole grain rye flour, mix, close the lid, hide in the closet.
For a long time, the dough in the jar will lie and smell like flour, water and a little hay, nothing will happen to it. But by the end of the day, fermentation may begin. In my sourdough - started, you can see small air bubbles. The smell at the same time, be healthy, it is better not to smell, as it smells of half-rotten grass. It is the putrefactive bacteria that give this amber.
Second day We treat them with a fresh portion of flour and water (50 g each), mix, close the lid, leave for a day. By the end of the second day, the leaven is actively fermenting, it is beautiful, but still smelly.
Day three. The sourdough ferments and bubbles, but is not yet ready - an unpleasant odor indicates that there are no lactic acid bacteria in it yet.
Throw out half of the starter culture, add 50 g to the rest. rye flour and 50 gr. water.
Day four... On the fourth day, the activity of the sourdough dried up - there were very few bubbles inside, but the smell began to change, it became fresh, with barely noticeable sour-milk notes. The smell and type of leaven are indicators of what is happening to it. Lies motionless - there is no yeast, it stopped smelling disgusting and sourness appeared - lactic acid friends began to multiply.
Then I had a couple of days when the leaven was very passive, but its aroma changed and became more and more sour.
On the sixth day my leaven slowly but surely began to grow and smell. It can be seen that bubbles began to appear, if you pick it up with a fork, you can see that the dough is loosened well.
To check, well, what if it works, I mixed 5 grams in a cup. starter, 25 gr. water and 25 gr. white wheat flour just to see if the starter will raise the dough, and if it will, how quickly. Tightened with plastic and left on the kitchen table. And after 8 hours I saw that the leaven in the cup rose and bubbled, and what a scent it had, beyond words!
You do not need to look closely to understand what fits perfectly, and sniff to distinguish sourness - the dough has a pleasant, but not sharp, distinct sour smell. Oh, what happiness I experienced when I again felt it - the smell of my rye leaven!
P.S. I would like to add that I took out this leaven for an unusually long time, usually by 4-5 days it is ready for battle and I carry out a test baking, but this time events developed less rapidly. But this does not mean that it will grow for you as long, perhaps already on the third day you will receive a ready-made sourdough, or maybe you will have to continue for about a week. Neither the first option, nor the second, should be alarming, because under any scenario and circumstances, the leaven should turn out, the main thing is to mix.You can read about what leaven is, how to remove it, contain and use it.
in this article , in it in detail about leaven in general, and about rye as well.
P.P.S. By the way, I was already baking wheat with this sourdough with rye bran and all sorts of seeds, the dough came up with a bang, spread out in an hour!
The forum has a separate section Various starters 
