Help me fix my sticky rye bread dough!

[jmcarthur8]

My hubby is making this recipe for rye bread. he had combined all the ingredients in the KA, mixed with the dough hook, and it is wet, wet, wet. I thought maybe letting it rest might tighten it up? Any bread bakers that can give me advice on what to do next? He added 1/2 cup more rye flour to see if that would help, but we don't want to add any more flour if that would ruin the bread.

Ingredients

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
4 cups warm water (110 degrees to 115 degrees F), divided
2 cups rye flour
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
2 teaspoons salt
7 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cornmeal
TOPPING:
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 teaspoons caraway seed

Directions

In a 4-qt. glass bowl, dissolve yeast in 2 cups warm water; whisk in rye flour until smooth. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel. Let stand in a warm place for about 4 hours or until batter falls about 1 in. and surface bubble activity is reduced. Stir in the sugar, caraway seeds, salt, 5 cups all-purpose flour and remaining water; mix well. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a firm dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes.
Divide dough into four portions. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes. Shape into four round loaves, about 6 in. each. Coat two baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray; sprinkle each with 1 teaspoon cornmeal. Place loaves on pans. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.
With a sharp knife, make several slashes across the top of each loaf. Brush with egg. Sprinkle each loaf with 1 teaspoon caraway seeds. Bake at 400 degrees F for 30-35 minutes, rotating pans after 15 minutes, or until browned. Cool on wire racks.

Thanks!

[sandylc]

Just got the book "Ratio" from the library. Applied the bread ratio to your recipe, and, yes, too much water in your recipe! As todao already said...

[janeh]

I regularly use a smittenkitchen recipe for rye bread, with my only change being the addition of vital wheat gluten because I live at a high altitude. It's a time consuming recipe, though not labor intensive, is delicious and freezes well. I find that this recipe makes two large loaves.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/01/new...

[jmcarthur8]

We divided the dough and added some flour to about a third of it, pushed it around with the scraper since it was still too sticky to knead, let that rise in two loaf pans for 45 minutes and baked it. The rest we let rise in the bowl and baked as it was.
The taste is great, but after 40 minutes in the oven, the two loaves were done but quite moist. I think they will make good toast for breakfast, though. We ended up with a lot of bread, so I think the ducks may get part of it ( the ducks on our lake absolutely go nuts for rye bread).

I will take todao's advice and look for a recipe that goes by weight instead of by volume. It's hard to find good rye bread here in rural Georgia, so it would be nice to make our own with a reliable recipe.

[sweetfern]

Anybody still listening for this one?

Rye dough by its nature is sticky. Knead it by hand, add fingerfuls of flour, keep kneading, and it will come together and smooth out. You have to do this to get the gluten going.

sweetfern

[jmcarthur8]

Yes, I am still listening... I've been wanting to give the rye bread another try lately, and waking up this thread gives me the incentive to work on it again.
I think I will find a recipe with less rye flour (or just not add any more to it), and pay attention to the water ratio in the recipe.

[Nyleve]

You might want to try baking this using the no-knead method. Let your very wet dough rise in a bowl until doubled. Then divide into 4 loaf portions and rise them again in individual bowls - don't worry much about the shape. You'll have to bake them in a covered casserole (like a Le Creuset or similar) - it's an interesting method and produces a very rustic loaf with large holes and a crusty exterior. I mention this because I just received a jar of supposedly antique Yukon sourdough starter (grrrr - just one more thing to look after) with which I baked a loaf using that method last night. It was fantastic. I used the no-knead sourdough recipe on the Breadtopia website (http://www.breadtopia.com/sourdough-n...) - there are lots of recipes on that site, and many are illustrated with video. Really excellent information.

[sweetfern]

jmcarthur8,

I just checked my Sour Rye Bread recipe--actually, George Greenstein's recipe from
Secrets of a Jewish Baker, it's on the web.

Here is what he says about kneading: "Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and knead. If the dough is moist and sticky, add more flour 1/4 cup at a time.
Knead until the dough feels soft and silky (5 to 8 minutes). Rye dough will be softer than usual and tend to feel sticky."

When I did this, at first I felt as though my fingers were in tar, the dough was so sticky. Then, sure enough, the dough started to feel soft and silky.

Greenstein's recipes are really good, get ready for close reading, the guys means what he says.

sweetfern

sweetfern

[sweetfern]

Oh, I forgot to add: I use a heating pad to make my bread dough rise. Works just fine. :)

sweetfern

[sweetfern]

OOPS, and I also add malt, 4 tablespoons, barley or barley mixed with rye.
I could also put in molasses. I have 2 rye loaves rising right now, on top of tine sheets with cornmeal, on top of a heating pad.

There is absolutely NOTHING like home made bread. A little sweet butter, maybe herring, a meal in itself.

sweetfern

[todao]

My best guess is that you're formula is running with about 79% hydration and that's waaaaay too much liquid. You don't way where you got the recipe but I would guess there's an error in in somewhere. An enriched rye bread is typically about 65 - 70% hydration. Another factor is that you're recipe uses bulk measure and unless you weight your ingredients for bread making (using bakers percentages) you're tossing the dice with every experience.
If you already have the dough mixed, drop it back into the KA with the dough hook and add AP flour gradually (about 3 - 4 Tbsp at a time) until the dough tightens up. Let the dough hook fork for a couple of minutes between doses of the extra flour. The dough should be tacky, but not sticky. The dough will not "tighten up" while resting; that requires kneading.

[tonifi]

I've had the same problem with rye bread...I think the rye flour doesn't absorb the water quite the same way. I used to add white flour until it firmed up but ended up with fairly shocking amounts of dough. Last time I added a bit of white flour, let it chill a little while in the fridge, and then turned it out quickly onto a REALLY well-floured board and tried to coat the surface enough for me to handle it. It turned out pretty well. The loaf spread an awful lot, but it tasted fine. Next time I'm going to back off my liquid a little bit.