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I needed a change, needed to use some rye starter so the yeastie boyz feel appreciated or something, so I decided to try a different rye recipe from St. Hamelman. This time St H’s “Light Rye”. Pretty simple, mostly white flour, 15% pre-ferment (all whole rye) and not bad at all to work with.

And that was with splashing a little more water into it while mixing. Guess I’m over my fear of sticky dough.

Two big loaves as promised (mit seeds of course!) and it smells so good that I can barely stand not cutting into it. But I.will.wait. the crust has gone from super hard to nicely crunchy. Next time I’d do a little egg wash there but you know how it is – first time out you follow the directions!

Baking bread at the same time as making pizza is pretty good time management. Both start the night before as you make the preferment or starter or poolish. I try to look at the rising schedule of the bread to see which gets started first. Pizza is basically a two hour ferment with a folding in the middle. Then you have to look at how long in the oven. This worked out great tonight. The pizza came out and the bread went in. If you want to be really efficient about it, make something that needs a long slow bake so the oven is on to make everybody feel warm and fuzzy and growing.