Riga Rye Bread
Rīgas Rudzu Maize (Riga Rye Bread) is a common variant of rye bread in Latvia, it’s even got into Soviet GOST standards during Soviet times. But common doesn’t mean simple to make. It is a four stage bread (sourdough, scald, sour scald, final dough) which requires quite a lot of time to make, higher temperatures than usual, a special coating at the end of the process and a resting period of at least 12 hours. The reward for all of that is a loaf of a truly amazing bread, which is hard to find outside of Northern Europe.
If you’ve never tried a proper rye before in countries like Latvia, Russia or Finland, I would definitely recommend trying to bake this one. 90% rye content and scalding process make this bread completely different from what most of people in English speaking countries think about rye breads.
Pre-requisites
You will need a heat resistant bowl to do scalding. You will also need a separate bowl or some other container for a sourdough build which will run in parallel to scald. I would also recommend using a separate large bowl for final dough mixing. You will also need something like a chopstick to prick the dough before baking - rye breads are never scored, they are pricked a few times instead. And You will need a saucepan to make a slurry for final coating.
You should also have a food thermometer to monitor temperature at some stages. I recommend using a digital one with near instant readings.
Rye dough is extremely sticky, so I usually wear vinyl gloves when mixing - dough will stick less and it will be easier to remove stuck bits. Mixing with bare hands proved to be extra annoying.
Ingredients
This recipe will yield a 600g dough. These are all the ingredients you will need (exact amounts will be listed below):
- light rye flour (type 997)
- medium rye flour (type 1350)
- all purpose wheat flour
- non-fermented and non-roasted rye malt (EBC 4-10 if buying in brewing shops)
- caraway seeds
- instant yeast
- salt
- black treacle (I believe it is called dark un-sulphured molasses in US)
- water
You can replace all of medium rye flour with a light one, that is how it is defined in GOST, but not how it is baked in Latvia. The difference between the two is tiny, but since I was born in Latvia I prefer to bake the variant I’m used to.
You will also need to have a rye sourdough 100% hydration starter in advance. Wheat starter won’t work. If you only have a wheat starter, you can re-feed a portion of it with rye over a course of a 3-5 days, feeding every 12 hours.
Process
Sourdough build
You will only need 50g of a freshly fed sourdough. You can use a portion of refreshed sourdough if you have a bulk ready. Or you can build it in just 4 hours from a starter you have in the fridge.
1 | Medium rye flour 17g |
It should ferment at +28C, so make sure to warm up your water to offset coldness of a starter taken from the fridge.
Sourdough build and the next step, scald build, should happen at the same time. You will be able to match the times exactly with some practice. Scald can easily survive additional time, so if your sourdough is slow or you started it a bit later, that’s ok.
Scald build
1 | Medium rye flour 74g |
Grind your malt into flour if you have it in grain or cracked form.
Pre-heat your oven to +65C. Pre-heat your mixing bowl by washing it with boiling water.
Mix rye flour and caraway seeds with boiling water. It is better to add water in portions and mix thoroughly after each portion, this way it will be easier and safer and also your mix won’t cool down as fast. Once everything mixed nicely, stick a thermometer inside and wait until it cools down to +65C. Should take a minute or two.
Add rye malt and mix everything so there are no dry bits left. Cover the bowl with something heat resistant (I use a small plate) and put in the oven for 3-5 hours. Oven temperature should be maintained at +65C.
Once you mix the scald, it will be a stiff mass which smells like flour and water. When it is ready, it will loosen up considerably and will smell and taste sweet. You will also notice that it can’t hold all of the water anymore and the surface will look quite wet.
Opara (sour scald) build
Once your sourdough and scald are ready, it’s time to mix them together and get a very unusual fermentation result. This stage is called opara (опара in Russian), but doesn’t have any real name in English.
1 | Sourdough 50g (all of it) |