Rye update . . .

I have now settled into making the best Ryvita replacement ever, and am ready to share. I enjoy the act of making this so much that I make one loaf at a time, using sourdough starter that I keep in the fridge and feed every few days. Michael prefers other breads, so I can adjust this bread to have the taste and texture I prefer.

Here's what I do:

I soak one cup rye berries in a mason jar filled with water and fitted with a screen. After an overnight soak I rinse and drain the rye berries, wrap the mason jar in a clean dishtowel, and let the berries just begin to sprout, rinsing and draining once or twice a day.

(Some organic rye berries that I got from an Amish supermarket on a Friday morning started to sprout by Sunday morning.)

Next, I cover the sprouted berries with water and grind them up with an immersion blender until they are very smooth. I pour all but three-quarters of cup or so into a big bowl. I add a cup of my sourdough starter from the fridge to the newly-pulverized berry and water mixture, and put the remaining three-quarters of a cup of ground-up fresh berries into my starter jar, which I put back in the fridge.

I add a little under two teaspoons of salt to the mixture of sourdough starter and freshly ground berries in the big bowl, and then I stir in one cup of high protein (winter wheat) flour, and one cup of dark rye flour.

I mix it all up, put a plastic lid on the bowl, and let it sit in a warm place all day, checking it from time to time to see if it needs some mixing. If it does, I mix it around with a spatula.

Before going to bed I transfer the dough into a loaf pan, cover it, and pop it in the fridge.

I bake it in the morning at 350 degress for an hour. Then I take it out of the pan and let it cool. Then I let it sit for a day or so before slicing it into thin slices, putting it a freezer bag, and putting it in the freezer (not waiting results in bread that has uneven moisture).

Every few days I take half a loaf or so out of the freezer, put the slices on a half sheet pan, and toast those slices at 350 for about 20 minutes (less or more depending on the thickness of the slices), and then I store the resulting crunchy, chewy, nutty, tasty slices in a covered container, where they would last for at least a week if I didn't eat them all up first.

When the supply looks low, I measure out a cup of rye berries to soak and sprout again.

If bread is the staff of life, this process gives my life a wonderful rhythm, and loaves that sing (literally--like French bread they crackle and pop when they come out of the oven).