I bake a loaf like that about an hour.
Use your instant read to test the internal temperature...
Maybe your oven isn't accurate....
Linda C....ducking and running!!

The challenge when making dough with rye flour in it is to overcome the natural sticky condition caused by the low-gluten rye flour - expecially in this recipe where there's a large percentage of rye flour.

Because the dough IS and will remain sticky due to the rye flour, even when correctly hydrated, people tend to add too much flour to overcome the stickiness during kneading. It's a completely different texture than bread made with flour from wheat, which gets nice and smooth when the gluten is developed.

If you have a problem with the natural stickiness of the dough, try kneading the dough in a large freezer-type zip-lock bag (remove as much air as possible from the bag before kneading) to help prevent adding too much flour during kneading. When it's kneaded, just turn the bag inside-out to get the dough out. You can also knead the dough with wet hands by dipping your hands in a bowl of water, instead of adding more flour.

-Grainlady

Lars, I think it looks great and I'll bet it will make fantastic toast. I have used an instant read thermometer to check the temperature of the bread when I think it has baked long enough. I am certainly not good at looking at it or thumping it to determine if it is done. Did you let it cool before you sliced it? It's hard to resist the great smell of bread just out of the oven, I know.

If I had your loaf and the crack developed during the rise, I would have gone with the flow and slashed through the crack and then made the other slashes in the same direction. But the crack on your loaf doesn't bother me at all.

Grainlady, what a great idea to knead it in a bag. I know that the gluten is added to help the rising of the bread, and from what you are saying, I am inferring that it does not really effect the stickiness in the dough stage. is that correct?

Lee

Lars, your bread looks fantastic to me! It certainly smells :) like it's flavorful like you said.

Grainlady...you never cease to amaze me with your knowledge, I learn something from everyone of your posts :)

What about oiling your hands? And doesn't the inside of the bag get 'sticky' too? Would oiling that help?

I knead on a Silpat. It helps....to an extent.

I did tamper with the recipe in that I added VWG in place of some of the AP flour, but that was to make up for the lack of gluten in the rye flour. I think I can handle the kneading part with sticky dough - the problem was that I left out 1/4 cup of flour as it was! I will have to add more water if I'm going to add the last 1/4 cup of flour.

I certainly did not wait for the bread to cool before I sliced it. I let it cool for a few minutes, but I sliced it when it was still warm - that's how I like it. It's completely cooled now, and the flavor is not as good as when it was warm. I think it will make good toast, however, or will improve when heated. My main concern is that it is a bit too dense, and I don't know if this is a property of pumpernickel or not. I think I should have baked it longer. My oven was at the right temperature, and I checked it with an oven thermometer.

What should the internal temp of the bread be when it is done? I have an instant read thermometer I could use.

I really like the way the pumpernickel smells - it's a great fragrance, possibly from the cocoa and molasses. It's also very slightly sweet, and I felt like I was eating cake when I ate the first two slices. I think I'll just leave the flax seeds out next time, but I plan to do this experiment again soon. First I have to buy more cocoa - I used up the last I had (except for one tablespoon) on this recipe.

Thanks for your help! This is a great place to come for information!!

Lars

I knead on a Silpat too (what a wonderful invention), but that doesn't stop the texture of the dough containing a lot of rye from being sticky. That's just the character of it. Oiling your hands would work, but I'd wait until the last few minutes of kneading for that or you may end up adding an awful lot of fat.

Wetting your hands with water while kneading is also a way to add hydration if you decide the dough is too dry. It's always better to err on the side of a slack dough than a dry one.

The plastic bag does get sticky. You're just not as inclined to adding too much flour because it IS sticky if your hands aren't getting sticky too. Even with the correct amounts of all the ingredients, dough will seem too wet and sticky UNTIL the gluten is completely developed. The gluten soaks up that extra hydration during kneading. You can even rest the dough during kneading and allow it to hydrate before finishing kneading.

When there is an unusually high amount of rye, it remains somewhat sticky and tacky even when the gluten is developed. You have to toss the bag in the trash when you're done (which goes against my cheapness). You can get most of the dough off the bag with a stiff spatula or with oiled hands.

There is a great little recipe called Bread-In-A-Bag (you can find it by Googling it) which is perfect for beginners and kids; which is where I got the idea for folks who tend to add too much flour, or recipes with rye, or people who have an "icky" factor when it comes to kneading dough by hand. It keeps a lot of the mess to a minimum, as well. It's a fun class to teach.

-Grainlady

My breads got much better when I started kneading with wet hands. I keep the faucet running and keep running my hands under it.
I think your pumpernickel looks great. I'll try the recipe soon.

I cook bread to 200...190 is often OK...but 200 is better.
And I like using "procedure gloves" for kneading...sometimes I forget to put them on....but it gives a whole new dimension to kneading dough...no sticky fingers....no flour around the cuticle and less discoverys that I have wiped my flourey hands on my rear and left a print.
And they come right and left hand gloves, and in sizes and without powder and non-latex and in sizes....and all that for about $10.00 for 50 pair.
Linda C

There may be a bit of overlap with previous posts, but here are some rye tips that could prove useful with high-proportion rye recipes:

1. The gluten structure is more delicate so gentle kneading is best. If you knead too much, the gluten strands break and the sugar chains exude moisture into the dough, leading to an unappealing gumminess.

2. Rye flour is sweet and those sugars will continue to develop at higher temperatures than wheat. What this means is rye breads with greater proportions of rye baked at the usual temperatures are more likely to collapse in the oven. This is where the acid in a rye sourdough comes in handy. (Rye is not only low-gluten but has sugars called pentosans. Sourdough works beautifully with rye because the acid counteracts the sugars.)

3. Rise dough for a shorter period. Bake at a higher initial temperature. Then lower temperature for a nice crumb-set and best flavor development.

4. If there's lots of rye in the bread, don't cut it too soon. Let it cool completely. A high-proportion rye can even benefit from sitting a day or so before cutting. Like fine wine, it needs to age.

I hope this helps.

Carol

Carol, that definitely helps. I don't think it is an overlap, and I've been following both threads. I was not aware that gentle kneading was better, but that's actually what I did. I also did allow the dough to rise for a shorter period - not over an hour at a time.

I guess it's too late to wait a day before cutting, but I can try that next time. I've already cut slices for DB's lunches for the rest of the week. He's going to toast it at work, and so I think it should be fine. The bread did taste a bit sweet (not overly, but noticeable), and I assumed that was from the molasses, but it could be partly from the rye flour.

I guess I'll have to start making sourdough to use with the rye flour. That will be another new experience for me, but DB has actually made his own sourdough starter.

This was pretty much of an experiment, and I feel confident that it will be better the next time I make, especially with all the help I'm getting here. I like pumpernickel so much that I think it is worth the trouble, and what I made today is already better than what I can buy.

I think I will try starting the baking at a higher temp for the first 20 minutes and then lower it for the end, and I will use a thermometer to check for doneness.

While I generally don't like foods with sugar, I do like foods with natural sweetness, as in the rye. I also like the sweetness of molasses.

Lars

I'm so glad it was useful to you, Lars. If you have a sourdough starter (or even old dough) there would definitely be a benefit in integrating it into the recipe.

I love rye bread and my inclination is to tear into it as soon as possible after baking, but I've learned a nice long resting period is a good thing.

My greatest compliment was at a potluck when an elderly Swedish-Finnish neighbor said the rye loaf I brought tasted "just like home." (Of course, LOL, she's a bit of a snob - "American" breads just don't match up.)

Carol

Carol, I'm really enjoying your posts here and learning a lot.

Several months ago I tried the Cooks Illustrated Almost No Knead Bread, I used AP and White WW flours. It had the addition of a small amount of vinegar which if I remember correctly was to enhance the flavor of the bread. It also had a small amount of beer to enhance flavor. There was a version that substituted 7 ounces of rye flour for 7 ounces of the AP but I did noit try that. That bread uses a very small amount of yeast and an overnight rise at room temperature. My question relating to that recipe's theory is would a small amount vinegar in Lars recipe help to balance out the natural sugars in the rye that can cause the dough to collapse?

TIA

Lee

When making pumpernickel or rye bread, I like to let the dough rest for about 20 minutes between mixing and kneading. Some of the recipes say to do this but some don't. That gives the flour more time to get hydrated so the dough is less sticky and there is less temptation to add too much flour.

When you adapted the recipe by replacing some flour with vital wheat gluten, perhaps the water should have been increased a bit.

There's so much expertise on this forum. Any comments I make are just a small part of that.

OK, the vinegar. I don't see any reason why vinegar couldn't be used, though I would tend to favor sourdough. There are a lot of things going on with any fermented starter/levain etc. that can't be duplicated with just vinegar. The one thing I would be concerned about with vinegar is a detrimental effect on the flavor of the bread if too much were used.

The advantage of vinegar in a conventional yeast dough is it would be a natural preservative/mold inhibitor. (Not that bread lasts that long around here!)

Carol

Thank you Carol. The amount of vinegar was one tablespoon white vinegar for a loaf using 8 ounces of AP flour and 7 ounces of rye flour in the Cook's Illustrated recipe. I am working my way up to trying sourdough. I have very little experience with bread making and I appreciate all the help I have received here.

Lee

Never apologize for lack of experience. At the end of his life Michaelangelo said, "And I am still learning." It's a fine motto.

I surmise 1 T. vinegar would indeed be beneficial and do no harm in terms of flavor. (Who am I to argue with CI? LOL.)

Depending upon the recipe you might consider natural apple cider vinegar instead of distilled white vinegar. The chemical benefit of the acetic acid would be the same but the flavor would be softer and more fruity.

Also, check your bags of flour. If ascorbic acid isn't included, just a tiny pinch can really make a difference. It firms the gluten and increases the gas retention of the dough (i.e. improved rise).

Carol

To go along with readinglady's great information... I don't think all recipes are written well to begin with, and this one is a good example of that. Recipes often fail to use good breadmaking science, therefore are often wrought with problems because of that.

I contend the higher protein flour milled from wheat as well as the vital wheat gluten should be added first and the gluten well-developed during the mixing stage, rather than the low-gluten rye. The gluten needs to hydrate in the higher-gluten flour and develop during the mixing stage much more than the kneading stage in this recipe. There's not a good reason to add the rye flour until the latter stage of mixing because it has little gluten to develop while the higher gluten flour requires more mixing time as well as kneading.

Concerning the vinegar... It's considered a flavoring and as readinglady pointed out you can use too much. I'd cut it to 1/2 t. because too much vinegar contributes too much acidity and it will kill the bakers' yeast and it also tears down the gluten. This recipe is already a little low on gluten considering the use of all-purpose flour and a very high ratio of rye flour - even with the added vital wheat gluten.

-Grainlady

Thanks, Grainlady! I revised the recipe in my files to have the AP and VWG added first. I also increased the water by one to two tablespoons. I think I might try making individual rolls the next time.

BTW, it makes good toast as it is.

Lars

Grainlady's suggestion about reducing the vinegar is a good one.

Also, a different acid you might use is just a bit of orange juice, which goes well with rye.

Carol

Oh Carol, now you're speaking my language. Rye and orange, yum. And I KNOW Lars has oranges.

I even have a tye bread recipe that calls for orange zest, so the orange juice would make an equivalent addition to taste, I think.

Annie

Lars, you can also add more water at the end if you need too. Just pour a couple of tablespoons of water onto the dough and work it in.