DH says use at least 50% wheat bread flour with as high a protein content as possible or you will have a brick. He says you can use as much as 70% and still have a good Rye flavor. I ask him particular for you. He mills his own flours and makes up his own sour doughs and so on. Bread is serious for him. It has to do gluten. You need gluten, which rye doesn't give you and that is what a high protein flour will do for you. Dark rye is like whole wheat in the wheat world. Use more wheat flour.

I haven't made bread in years, so I have no advice for you. But I'm remembering a delicious rye loaf I used to make with cottage cheese in it.

The reason I'm posting is that a few minutes ago I added a loaf of rye bread to my grocery pickup order. This is unusual because my Lyme doctor cut me off bread years ago (the yeast is a problem), and I hardly ever eat it. But I had a strong craving for rye toast for some reason, and indulged myself. Then I saw the title of your thread.

I have a favorite recipe, using my bread machine, which calls for 3/4 cup rye, 3/4 cups whole wheat, and 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour.

To increase gluten, I add Vital Wheat Gluten (VWG) to my rye bread, and I also add it to whole wheat flour, at the rate of one Tbsp per each cup of rye or whole wheat flour.

I also grind the caraway seeds so that they will be less likely to cut the gluten threads, and this helps make the bread lighter. Sometimes I use fennel seeds instead of caraway, and sometimes I use a combination of both.

The color of dark rye comes mostly from molasses, which I use when I make pumpernickel. I have several recipes for rye and pumpernickel that I use, and I have written variations for different sizes of bread pans, including Pullman pans.

I bake bread about once a week, as that is all we eat. At a certain point, I freeze parts of it. In L.A. I can get free sourdough bread from a bakery for which I made tablecloths for their farmers' market displays.

Personal preference but rye bread without caraway seeds is just bread. I am aware that some do not like them because but following Lars suggestion about grinding will give you the flavor without the whole seeds that some find offensive. I have never tried it with fennel seeds but that would be interesting.

just bread

I LOVE just bread

Vital Wheat Gluten

Lars are the VWG on Amazon good, is one kind better than another?

I buy wheat gluten at the health food store, in bulk. I also use fennel in my rye bread. I've tried several recipes. Some are heavier, some lighter than others. The one I'd like to try is Jewish, no yeast. Trailrunner posted it years ago...she makes 2 loaves a week....don't know if I still have the recipe....

Here is an interesting article about rye flour colors. I bought the darkest, I hope I can make some bread like the last beautiful picture showing pumpernickel.

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2020/09/28/types-of-rye-flour

Some of the darker rye recipes use a small amount of coco or chocolate powder. In my mind using something like 90-95% chocolate or ground nibs rather than coco would produce a darker bread without having a change of flavor or over powering chocolate scent.

It will sound odd but I learned to make some things by trial and error simply by matching what I put in them with remembered smells. So one of the things I do when I look at a recipe is to see if there is something in it or missing that I expect to be there.

I have been trying unsuccessfully for years to re-create SO's childhood memory of sourdough rye from Finland. It is very dense; I have tasted samples of the real thing.

First loaf ready, made in Zojirushi. Delicious, light, fragrant. It was a success because all of y'all were there in my mind with these posts as I made the bread.

Thanks to all who posted advice and rye-making memories. Thank you to Lars for the gluten mention, I added a little. Thank you to Maifleur for caraway seed mention, I bought ground seeds and added some to the dough. And thank you to Patriciae and her husband for the flour advice, I lightened the dough up with bread flour otherwise it would have been a brick.