Rye Bread

A type of bread common to Northern Europe in many varieties, but almost unknown in the south. This version is a typical Danish example. In Denmark, most people eat this type of bread several times a week.

Ingredients

* 1500g rye flour
* 1000g cracked rye seeds
* 5 tablespoons salt
* about 2L water
* 300mL sour dough

This recipe produces 3 loaves of rye bread. They can keep about a week in a plastic bag. Do not refrigerate.

Procedure

Mix the salt with the rye flour in a big bowl. Add 1.8L of water and mix it. Mix in the sour dough. The result should be wet enough to flow very slowly. Cover it with a cloth and let it rise for at 12-30 hours as convenient. Then add the cracked rye seeds. If the resulting dough feels dry, add a bit of water. The result should be just dry enough to retain an approximate shape, but no drier. Take out 300mL of dough for the next bread. Butter 3 bread forms and put the dough into it, forcing it into all corners with a spoon. Then using a fork, make deep holes as close as you can all over the bread. Let it rise for 5-10 hours, and then bake it for about 90 minutes at about 180C. Let the bread cool for 15 minutes, and then tip them out to cool further on a table. Note that the bread is very difficult to cut for 2 hours or so after baking.