By Rob Nichols, Weaver Street Market Bread Bakery Manager
Voll (full). Korn (grain). Brot (bread). In German bakeries, this bread sits at the apex of dense and grainy rye loaves, proudly proclaiming its identity as the bread made only with 100% whole-grain rye. Weaver Street Market has been making this bread for at least 20 years, but recently, we were forced to rethink the bread when it began acting strangely. After blaming the flour, the mixer (a person, not the machine), the oven, and the weather, we decided to start over.
I won’t go into the variations that didn’t work, but we ended up with a richly-flavored loaf made with only five ingredients: rye chops, water, toasted sunflower seeds, salt, and a tiny amount of yeast. There is no rye flour, only rye chops, which are cracked rye berries (similar to cracked wheat or steel cut oats).
The tricky part of the new recipe is that the rye chops are used in three different forms: 40% are infused with starter and fermented overnight to make a rye sourdough starter; 30% are soaked in warm water overnight to soften up; and the remaining 30% are added during the final mix, along with additional water and the sunflower seeds, salt, and yeast. Note that the rye sourdough starter does the heavy lifting both in flavor and rising; the yeast plays a small supporting roll.
Like other breads with more than 60% rye, this bread requires a resting period before eating. To quote Jeffrey Hamelman, one of the great bread mentors of our time, “As the percentage of rye increases, the bread requires more rest time before eating. A full 24 hours of resting allows the crumb to stabilize and firm up; the rest period also allows the flavors to develop fully. In the case of Vollkornbrot… 48 hours to as much as 72 hours of resting before eating is recommended.”
The traditional way to eat Vollkornbrot is to cut thin slices, no more than a ¼ inch (or 5 mm if you are German). Spread your slice with a hearty smear of butter. If you like, add some thin slices of salted radish or cucumber, cured meats (salami is great), or a favorite cheese. Beer, of course, is the traditional complement.
Please ask for a taste of the reinvented Vollkornbrot the next time you’re in the store. We make a batch every Wednesday and send the loaves to the stores on Thursday afternoon. Take one home, dig out your sharpest bread knife, and cut off a slice… make an open face sandwich and crack open a pilsner.