Medium Dark Rye Bread

I love rye bread. I love the deep flavors and the taste of caraway. Rye bread makes for some killer sandwiches. Rye bread isn’t always easy to find in the US, unless you are in the east coast or in a town with a high Jewish population. I solve that problem by making my own. I’ve been making light rye bread for years, but have been wanting to develop a darker rye. The flavors are a bit more intense in a dark rye which I absolutely love. This makes a killer sandwich and an amazing piece of toast. I call it a medium dark rye bread because it isn’t super dark in color. If you want a darker rye replace the warm water with brewed coffee. That’ll give it a darker tone.

The key to making great bakery-style bread at home is all in the method. Bakeries use steam ovens to get that wonderful chewy crust. You can create your own steam oven by placing a shallow pan of water in the oven with your bread. The water will evaporate in the heat, filling your oven with steam.

Using a baking stone or pizza stone is vital to creating both the perfect crust and the perfect crumb. Bakeries use fancy ovens of the masonry variety. See, the oven in your house cooks using radiated (the flame or the electrical elements) and convected heat (the air moving around the oven. A convection oven has fans to assist in the circulation of the air). A masonry oven is able to use conduction on top of convection and radiated heat. Masonry ovens utilize stone, just as their name suggests. Stone retain heat really well. When you put a loaf of bread directly on a hot stone, the stone transfers its heat to the bread through conduction. So when you use a pizza/baking stone, you are literally adding a third heating method into your oven. Isn’t that awesome? There’s your science lesson for the day!