A look at the crumb before they become a ham and Swiss sandwich.
Amazing Bob. I would love to see you make some real deal pumpernickel. Please.
Amazing Bob. I would love to see you make some real deal pumpernickel. Please.
I know that the supermarket stuff is not real...more like colored rye or something.I will get there, but true pumpernickel is a pretty involved process.
I knew you would know what's right.Yup. I have two recipes. One that is more like the old deli pumpernickels, which are deli rye types that have very dark caramel coloring (the recipe I have tells you how to make this stuff). I think that's what we're both used to.
The real stuff is actually simple. Take coarse rye meal (kind of a first pass of the rye berries through the grist mill), mix with salt and water, ferment with no yeast or starter overnight, give it a whirl in the mixer for about 10 minutes, and transfer to a Pullman loaf pan to bake at 225 for 24 hours. This is the square German and Scandinavian black bread that you've probably seen.
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I had an interesting experience today. I was making a 50% whole wheat loaf following the Forkish method. I pre-fermented the white flour overnight as a poolish, and used freshly milled whole wheat flour that I got from a colleague at work. I followed the exact same process I always do, and the resulting mix had the consistency of a batter. It had no body whatsoever. I had to add in some additional white flour to provide enough gluten to make a dough.
It’s a wild card whenever you use freshly milled flour because you don’t know the protein/gluten content. The King Arthur and Pillsbury’s of the world test and adjust to ensure consistency from batch to batch. Today’s loaf was a lesson in this.
It still came out great, though.
That looks awesome.
How did it taste?
The drying/reconstituting is supposed to be just as involved as starting from scratch.@beginish -
When you say you don’t have time to devote to a sourdough culture, what do you mean? I’ve never done it but want too. Reading about the process seems like it does not take much once started. Am I wrong?
Also, I read about drying it and then reconstituting when needed, was this not true?
@beginish -
When you say you don’t have time to devote to a sourdough culture, what do you mean? I’ve never done it but want too. Reading about the process seems like it does not take much once started. Am I wrong?
Also, I read about drying it and then reconstituting when needed, was this not true?
The drying/reconstituting is supposed to be just as involved as starting from scratch.