Bread Making 101: Whole Grain Rye Sourdough Bread

I love rye bread and Evelyn Fields bakes up a delicious loaf in this post. I hope that you enjoy it!

Just warning, the recipe I'm sharing is complicated but I believe makes a really digestible bread. I started with this rye recipe that is easy to follow & has great pictures. It you don't have a lot of bread baking experience, I would start with the linked recipe.

Whole Grain Sourdough Rye Bread & low temperature cooking:

2.5 c. grain (I used a mix of rye, spelt, barley & wheat)
4 c. whole wheat flour & starter
1 Tbsp salt
1/4 c. oil
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1/2 c. molasses or Rapadura sugar
2.5 Tbsp Caraway seeds
Oats for non-stick

The night before:
1.Soak 2.5 cups grain in water & tsp of whey. (It will increase to 3 cups)
2.In another bowl, mix 3.5 cups flour with your sourdough starter & just enough water to mix (save 1/2 cup of flour for kneading).

The next day:
1.Drain soaked grain & blend in food processor(1-2 minutes).
2.In separate large bowl, mix all ingredients except soaked grain.
3.Once well mixed add grain in & mix with hands & form into a gooey ball.
4.Liberally flour cutting board & roll your gooey dough ball around on it to well coat the outside. This is not a typical knead, you just want the outside of the dough to dry up a bit from the flour. The inside of the ball will still be very moist.
5.Sprinkle oats on cooking stone (I tried it on the stone & in the cast iron pan but I liked the stone better.) & place dough on top.
6.Place in oven for 1 hour on warm.
7.Turn oven up to 210 degrees & bake for around 4 hours.
8.It is done when you can push on it & it feels done & the inside temp is around 190.

*This is pre-cooked dough.
*This bread doesn't really rise so it is pretty dense & moist. We used if for sandwiches & with butter. It is very flavorful & hopefully keeps a lot of nutrients from not being cooked at a high temp & all the soaking. Good luck on your baking adventures.

Soaking

So along with fermenting bread I'm also soaking, or sprouting, barley!
No, I'm not making beer, although I will say that the longer you let the barley soak, the more bubbly and sweeter smelling it gets! I almost smells good enough to drink.

I'm sprouting the barley for our chickens. A friend of mine who owns the feed store in town said that it has doubled his egg production! Really? I'm all for that, seeing as we are down to 4 chickens now and it's moulting season. And you know what that means....well, maybe you don't. (It means little to NO eggs!)

Well see how it all works out this winter with our limited sunlight and rainy days. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will help us get some eggs!