Recipe
Your first sourdough loaf: 100% rye in a tin
The recipe to start with if you've never baked sourdough. No stretch & fold, no banneton, no artistic scoring.
- Yield
- 1 loaf · ~1 kg dough
- Rise
- ~4 hours (or overnight in the fridge)
- Bake
- 20 min at 250°C + 30 min at 220°C
If you've never baked sourdough bread, this is the recipe to start with. No stretch & fold, no banneton, no artistic scoring. You mix, work the dough a little, pour it into a tin, wait, bake. That's it.
The dough is straightforward, but it needs a healthy, active starter. If keeping a jar is stopping you from baking, try the version with a single-use sourdough build and a little yeast.
Preparation
First, the starter
Use a healthy mature starter from another baker, or a purchased live culture activated according to its instructions. For this formula, the 100 g starter must be at 100% hydration: equal weights of flour and water.
Starting with flour and water instead? Allow several days of feeds and follow King Arthur's full starter guide. Readiness on day four to seven isn't guaranteed. Look for repeatable growth after feeding and a pleasantly sour smell, rather than just the first bubbles or the age of the jar.
A brown or dark liquid layer can occur in an unfed starter. Mold isn't normal: discard the entire culture if you see fuzzy growth or suspicious patches, and clean the container thoroughly. A putrid smell also means starting over. Don't taste raw flour or starter. CSU's starter guidance.
The bread, step by step
18:00 · Mix and work the dough
Put the flour, water, starter and salt in a bowl and mix vigorously, with a wooden spoon or a wet hand, for a good few minutes, until everything comes together and you can't see any dry flour.
Don't knead it like wheat bread (rye contains gluten, but doesn't form wheat's elastic network), but don't just give it one stir either: work it hard until it becomes a thick, sticky, even paste. It will be dense and stick to your hands. That's perfectly normal, it's exactly how it should look.
18:10 · Into the tin
Pour it straight into a greased or paper-lined tin. Level the top with a spatula or a wet hand (wet your hand and it won't stick).
If you like, wet the top, sprinkle sesame seeds generously and press them in lightly with your palm.
18:15–22:00 · Leave it alone
Nothing to do here. It's ready to bake when it has visibly risen, has small cracks on the surface and smells pleasantly sour.
Important: it doesn't need to double. Rye rises modestly, not spectacularly like wheat. If you've got a few nice cracks, you're on the right track.
22:00 · Choose
Either bake it now, or put the tin in the fridge overnight and bake in the morning. Both work perfectly.
Baking
- 20 minutes at 250°C.
- Then 30 minutes at 220°C.
- Take the bread out of the tin as soon as it leaves the oven and let it cool on a rack, so the bottom doesn't steam and go soggy.
The hardest step: patience
Wait at least 12 hours before slicing. I know, it smells incredible and you want it now. But rye needs that time for the crumb to set: cut too early, it comes out gummy.
Ideally: bake in the morning and slice in the evening, or bake in the evening and slice the next day.
The formula to remember
5 : 4.25 : 1 : 0.12
That is 500 g flour · 425 g water · 100 g starter · 12 g salt.
Mix → work the dough → pour into the tin → proof → bake → wait until tomorrow.
That's all. The first time, it may feel like "nothing is happening", but that's exactly the beauty of it. It's a bread that works on its own and forgives you almost anything. Happy baking.