Rye Sourdough 
 
Ingredients
 
55g Active sour dough starter (see how to make a sour dough starter)
280g Room temperature water
15g Honey
100g Rye flour
260g Strong bread flour
40g Whole wheat bread flour
7g Salt
 
Here’s how:
 
Add the starter, water, and honey to a bowl. Whisk thoroughly with a fork until combined. Add the flours, and mix together first with the fork to start to incorporate, then with your hands until a shaggy dough is formed, and the bits of flour left just disappear. Sprinkle the salt on top, do not mix in. Cover with a damp cloth.
Let the dough sit for one hour, covered and undisturbed.
Now you are going to knead into the dough the salt that is sitting on top, for about 1 min 15 seconds. There is no precise way to do this, just think of working the dough through your hands and up against the bowl, push and pull. You will start to feel the dough relax a bit around 1 minute. Continue for about 15 or 30 seconds. Then leave the dough alone, covered, for 30 minutes. This counts as what would be your first set of stretch and folds.
After those 30 minutes pass, perform another set of stretches and folds 2 more times.
Now you will let it sit, undisturbed and covered with a damp cloth, for about 7 hours at 70 degrees F. If the temperature in your home is above 70, this will take less time, vice versa. You will know it is ready when the dough has risen, doubled in size and is smooth and puffy on top, with a few bubbles. It will not be as jiggly as some sourdoughs that you may have made before.
At this point, lightly dust your work surface with flour. Put the dough onto the work surface, and pre-shape. Then let it sit for 15 minutes on your work surface.

Now, shape your dough and place into a flour dusted banneton seam side up. (Optional, you can wait 15 minutes after placing it in banneton, and pinch the perimeters of the dough into the centre to hold the shape even more, called
stitching.) The dough will now go through its final rise. You can do this on the counter, which will take about 2 hours at 70 degrees F for the dough to puff up and be jiggly. It will not double. OR you can do the final rise overnight in the refrigerator, with the banneton covered in a plastic bag or with a very damp cloth. You need this for holding the moisture in.
Time to bake. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F, with your dutch oven preheating inside the oven. When the oven is preheated, flip your dough out gently onto parchment paper and score your dough. If you did the final rise in the refrigerator, take it straight from fridge to scoring. You should score it cold, you DO NOT need to let it come to room temp.
Then put dough into the dutch oven on the parchment, and put the cover on. Turn the oven down to 450 degrees F and slide the dutch oven in. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the cover.
Turn the heat down to 430 degrees F, and bake for 25 more minutes, until the crust is golden brown and crackly. Remove from the oven, and remove the bread from dutch oven and place onto a cooling rack.
Wait AT LEAST one hour to cool otherwise the interior will be gummy.
 
How to make a sour dough starter
 
Day 1:

To begin your starter, mix 50g flour with 50g tepid water in a jar or, better still, a plastic container. Make sure all the flour is incorporated and leave, semi- uncovered, at room temperature for 24 hrs.



Day 2:

Mix 50g flour with 50g tepid water and stir into yesterday’s mixture. Make sure all the flour is incorporated and leave, semi-uncovered, at room temperature for another 24 hrs.



Day 3:

Mix 50g flour with 50g tepid water and stir into yesterday’s mixture. Make sure all the flour is incorporated and leave, semi-uncovered, at room temperature for another 24 hrs.



Day 4:

You should start to see some activity in the mixture now; there should be some bubbles forming and bubbling on top. Mix 50g flour with 50g tepid water and stir into yesterday’s mixture. Make sure all the flour is incorporated and leave, semi- uncovered, at room temperature for another 24 hrs.



Day 5:

The mixture should be very active now and ready for making your levain (starter). If it’s not bubbling, continue to feed it on a daily basis until it does. When it’s ready, it should smell sour almost like vinegar or yogurt.



You now have a starter, which is the base to the bread. You’ll need to look after it, but naming is optional! Keep it in the fridge (it will stay dormant) and 24 hrs before you want to use it, pour half of it off and feed it with 100g flour and 100g water. Leave it at room temperature and it should become active again. The longer the starter has been dormant, the more times it will need to be refreshed – the process of pouring off half the starter and replacing it with new flour and water – to reactivate. If your starter is ready to use, a teaspoonful of the mixture should float in warm water.
 
 
Recipe by Peter Sidwell