There was a bread I used to love when I was growing up. It was a seedless rye that had a dense texture w/ a very tight crumb & had a crust that was soft & very chewy. Unfortunately the bakery we used to get it at went out of business.
When I make bread now, I can get a nice crisp, chewy crust, or a soft one, but I can't seem to get that combination of chewiness & softness. Also not sure how to achieve the density I am looking for.
Any suggestions? Not even really sure where to start. Any help would be appreciated.
Without knowing the percentage of rye in the bread, I can only make one suggestion: cover the freshly baked loaf with a towel, soon as it comes out of the oven. The steam and moisture the bread releases while cooling will soften the crust.
Wrapping the bread while warm in a tea towel should do the trick.
As for the other issue, time to experiment. Start looking at pics of ryes and try to find one similar to get an idea of the rye percentage. There is a rye bake-off on this site going on now that should generate a lot of pics. Take a look.
http://weightloss-slim.fit/node/66523/community-bake-ny-jewish-bakerydeli-style-rye-breads%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3EA commercial,neighborhood bakery bakes what sells. Anything really dense is generally a specialty bread (usually all of these dense,100% ryes were called pumpernickel whether they were or not). Then there was the plain or seeded sandwich rye. That was usually a 30-50% range of rye flour. The AP flour gave it a nice soft feel and good sandwich structure to the crumb.
Some research and experimentation is called for. What fun!
Thank you. I am guessing from your description, this would have been considered a sandwich rye. It was very light, came w/ & w/o caraway, & the plain version was my favorite bread ever. I am experimenting like you suggested & am getting closer on the basic crumb etc, but I have a very poor understanding of how to manipulate the crusts & that was a big chunk of my love of this particular bread. It was a shiny, soft crust, but so very wonderfully chewy!
So far I can get crisp & chewy, or I can get just soft, but the combination of the 2 eludes me.
What happens in a commercial bakery to get a crust like that? I obviously don't have a commercial oven, but if I knew what they did maybe I can figure out a way to do something similar.
Is there a link on this site somewhere on how to manipulate the crusts specifically? I will definitely try the wrapping on the next baking. I am watching the rye deal too, thank you for the link, but haven't seen a crust that is similar yet. It is difficult for me to tell what's going on w/ the crusts by just the pictures though.
I have generously brushed the loaf with water right before putting it into the oven. Some oven moisture will also help.
Search for oven steam.
Reading your post I was reminded of this bread I recently made. http://weightloss-slim.fit/node/66565/buttermilk-rye%3C/a%3E I'd give it a try. And if you'd like skip the flax seeds on the top. After it's completely cooled down wrap it tightly in cling wrap and leave it that way for two days. It might be what you're looking for. Either way it's a very nice bread! Let me know. Good luck!