Jewish Rye Bread

Excerpted from the new Zingerman’s Bakehouse Book

In order to open Zingerman’s Bakehouse, we had to be able to bake great Jewish Rye Bread for Zingerman’s Delicates­sen, which was our first (and at the beginning our only) customer. It’s not possible to have a superb Reuben sandwich without authentic Jewish rye bread. We wanted our Jewish rye to be an essential part of the sand­wich, not just a structural element that didn’t really add to the flavor. So right from the beginning, we used and further evolved the excellent recipe and techniques we learned from our first teacher, Michael London.

First, we use a sour starter, which is unusual these days.

It adds a little bit of leavening to the recipe, but mainly it provides depth and complexity of flavor. We created the starter in the fall of 1992, and we’ve been feeding it every day since to keep it healthy, with just the right amount of tang. This version of rye bread was the one made most often by the Polish Jewish bakers in New York and was called sour rye. It later became known as Jewish rye.

Second, we use “old” rye bread from the previous day’s bake.

We slice and soak it in water and then add it to the dough. It adds a layer of texture, flavor, moisture, and color to the bread. It’s also a tradition for Jewish bakers to take something from yesterday and put it in today’s recipes, representing the continuity and interconnectedness of life.

Third, there’s actually some rye in the recipe.

Many rye breads are made from white-wheat flour with a touch of rye added. We use lots of medium rye (rye flour that has some of its bran) in our sour starter.

Finally, we create a real crackly crust.

We brush each loaf with water before it goes into the oven and then again when it comes out. The contrast of the cool water on the hot loaf causes the crust to crack in a distinctive way that is characteristic of Jewish rye.

We ship thousands of loaves every year to bread lovers nationwide.

Our artisan bread is baked down the road from us at Zingerman’s Bakehouse. We ship bread using two business day service – nothing slower. Our bread doesn’t have any preservatives, so we use expedited shipping to help ensure it arrives in great condition.

The bread will last on the counter for a few days in its Zingerman’s bread bag.

It does not need to be refrigerated – in fact, we recommend you avoid the fridge! Refrigeration will wreak havoc on the texture.

If you want to keep the bread for more than a few days your best bet is to freeze it.

Double bag the loaf—or part of it—in plastic and freeze for up to three months.

All of our full-flavored breads are completely baked all the way so reheating is not necessary. 

You can eat the bread right out of the bag (ripping pieces or cutting slices – no judgment here). If it seems a little hard or dry, that’s because the thick, crisp crust is meant to protect the bread. Just like the rind on a natural cheese, real bread has very real crust to protect the inside of the loaf from drying out.

We only suggest that the bread will give you the “just out of the oven” experience… if you reheat it in the oven.

For a warm crackly crust and a soft, chewy crumb, we suggest putting your loaf (whole, half, or part) in a 350 degree oven for approximately 15-20 minutes. If you’re pulling bread out of the freezer, let it defrost for about 30 minutes before throwing it in the oven.

Most artisan breads are based on the same four ingredients: flour, water, salt, and a leavener. The first step to making great bread is to choose great versions of those ingredients.

Better Flour

Let’s start with flour. At Zingerman’s Bakehouse, the “house” flour is an organic AP flour that comes from a single mill in Colorado—most of it grown on a single farm. The bakers use more than 20,000 pounds of it each week. It’s included in baked goods from Farm Bread to Hummingbird Cake.

For many breads and pastries, the team at our Bakehouse also use locally grown, freshly milled whole grain flours. Many of those flours are milled in the bakery on the in-house stone mill, including the rye flour used in the Vollkornbrot and Roadhouse breads. The freshly milled flours are more variable and perishable, but used well they contribute exceptional depth of flavor.

Natural Leavening

Let’s talk about leavening, too. While some Zingerman’s breads, like Paesano and Sesame Semolina, are made with yeast, more than a dozen of our breads are naturally leavened. Naturally leavened breads are made without the addition of commercial yeast, relying instead on the “wild” yeasts present in the sourdough starters the Bakehouse team has been feeding daily since 1992. Zingerman’s naturally leavened breads range from the tangiest Better than San Francisco Style Sourdough to sweeter loaves like Cinnamon Raisin and Chocolate Cherry.

Time

The most important ingredient is one you’ll never see listed on a label: time. At Zingerman’s, making bread is a slow process. A loaf of Farm bread takes 18 hours. A loaf of Paesano bread takes a whopping 20 hours. All that time allows for incredible flavor development, the same way that a broth simmered all day has way more intense, complex flavor than one that’s only been cooking for a couple of hours.
Those flavorless artisan breads from other bakeries probably suffer from being made in just a few hours, not allowing enough time for flavor development. And incidentally, those bags of sliced white bread at the grocery? Thanks to industrial dough developers and oxidizers, they can go from raw flour to oven- ready dough in four minutes flat. No wonder they don’t taste like much!

Stone

The method of baking matters, too. Zingerman’s breads are baked in a stone hearth oven. The stone allows for more even distribution of heat, making for a crisper, more flavorful crust.

All the little steps add up. Zingerman’s breads are deeply aromatic, with complex flavors of grain. You really can taste the difference.

Photo credit: EE Berger