Rye Bread

Method

1. ferment600 min
   covered, 20–22°C, overnight
   sourdough starter + 200 g of the rye flour + 200 ml of the water, stirred to a thick batter and left until domed, bubbled, and sharply sour = sponge. The souring is not flavour decoration: rye's alpha-amylase survives into the bake and keeps cleaving starch while the loaf sets, and only a dough acidified to roughly pH 4.3–4.5 shuts it down in time. An under-soured rye bakes gummy no matter how long it stays in the oven.
2. mix10 min
   wet hands or a stiff spatula
   sponge + remaining rye flour + bread flour + remaining water + salt + caraway + molasses, worked only until no dry flour remains. It will be a sticky paste, not a dough, and there is no windowpane to chase — rye proteins do not form gluten, so the gas is held by pentosan gums that hydrate on contact and are sheared apart by long kneading. Five extra minutes of mixing makes the loaf denser, not stronger.
3. prep5 min
   oiled loaf pan
   scrape the paste into the pan and smooth the top flat with a wet hand or wet spoon — nothing else will release from it, and any peak or ridge left standing will tear into a crust flap as the loaf rises.
4. proof105 min
   covered, 26–28°C
   until risen by roughly half and the surface shows fine pinholes just beginning to open. Stop there. Wheat gives you a poke test and a wide margin; rye's pentosan gel has no elasticity, so the moment the bubble walls thin past their peak the loaf simply subsides and will not recover in the oven.
5. bake60 min
   240°C with steam for 15 min, then 190°C
   the hot opening sets the crust and drives the last rise; dropping the heat lets the crumb reach 96–99°C at the centre without scorching the molasses-dark crust. Pull it at that internal temperature — rye starch gelatinizes hotter than wheat starch, and a loaf taken out at 90°C looks done and slices like putty.
6. rest720 min
   bare on a rack, unwrapped, then wrapped in linen
   do not cut it. Rye crumb finishes setting as it cools and the gelatinized starch retrogrades over the following hours; a loaf sliced warm smears into paste and stales twice as fast because the cut face bleeds moisture. Twelve hours is the minimum, twenty-four is better, and the flavour is squarely better on day two.