Shepherd’s Loaf
In order to be able to organize the upcoming baking course for rye bread in the Meraner Mühle, I was given different types of flour to test. At first I thought that the Italian rye flours were very similar to the Austrian rye flour. But that turned out to be a big mistake after mixing the sourdough!
Only the rye flour “Tipo 0” could be compared with the Austrian “R500”. The rye flour “Tipo 1” already absorbed approx. 20% more water than the rye flour “R960” and the rye flours Tipo 2 and Tipo 3 came very close to the Austrian R-2500.
In order to be able to bake the bread with Austrian or German flours, I recommend lowering the hydration (TA) in the main dough by about 10% at the beginning. The hydration (TA) can be at 1:1 in the sourdough.
Recipe
The following recipe gives a dough weighing 1829g:
1. Rye sourdough:
- 200g Rye flour Tipo 0 (Austrian = R500)
- 175g Water
- 10g Starter
Hydration(TA): 188 DT: 28°C reduced to room temperature (20-22°C) Maturity time: 14-16 hours
2. Wheat sourdough:
- 200g Wheat flour Tipo 0 (Austrian = W700)
- 250g Water
- 10g Starter
Hydration (TA): 225% DT: 30°C reduced to room temperature (20-22°C) Maturity time: 14-16 hours
3. Main dough:
- 385g Mature rye sourdough
- 460g Mature rye sourdough
- 400g Rye flour Tipo 0 (Austrian = R500)
- 200g Wheat flour Tipo 0 (Austrian = W700)
- 325g Water (using Austrian flours about 265-285g)
- 25g Pork lard
- 22g Salt
- 5g Bread spice
- 7g Yeast
4. Instructions:
- Mix all ingredients on slow speed for 7 minutes.
- Then cover and allow to rise in the mixing bowl for 15 minutes.
- Then shape into a round loaf and place in a floured proofing basket (sprinkle the proofing basket with fennel seed first)
- Once 3/4 proofed, bake the loaf in an oven preheated to 250°C with steam.
- Release the steam after 5 minutes (crack open the oven door for 1 minutes).
- After 15 minutes of baking time reduce the oven to 200°C and bake until well browned.
- Baking time should take about 60-65 minutes.
