Getting Enough Gluten

• The naturally occurring gluten in rye flour is not only low, but weaker than the gluten found in wheat flour. In bread making, it is the gluten that combines with the water and allows the bread to stretch when gas bubbles form due to the yeast. The gluten in rye is so fragile, any air bubbles created immediately break, because the dough is not elastic enough to trap the air. Adding a proportion of white wheat flour to your bread recipe bolsters the gluten in the dough so your air bubbles have a chance to rise and create the loft needed for a good loaf of bread.

Wrestling Over Water

• Dough made with a high percentage of rye flour has very little elasticity and falls apart easily when you try to pick it up. This is due to a complex sugar found in rye flour known as pentosans. Also found in other whole grains, the large amount of pentosans in rye competes with the gluten for water, resulting in a fragmented dough in spite of its sticky quality. White wheat flour with its comparatively low levels of pentosans helps the dough to retain enough water necessary for the production of gluten. It is worth the effort to search out recipes formulated for rye flour, because the proportion of liquid helps to combat the thirsty pentosans.

Understanding the Enzymes

• Breads made with rye flour ferment faster than wheat breads due to the large presence of an enzyme in the rye known as amylases. These enzymes are responsible for breaking the starch down into sugars, and in the case of rye, they do their job much more aggressively than desired. When too much of the starch is allowed to break down, the dough becomes glue-like and difficult to handle, ultimately compromising the structure and crumb of your bread. Adding white wheat flour slows down these enzymes, allowing more of the starch to remain intact. Traditional European breads made with a large percentage of rye flour rely on the addition of sourdough starters to acidify the amylase enzymes.

Buying Rye

• Rye that has been ground into flour is sold under more than one name, making it sometimes difficult to figure out just what you are getting. Pumpernickel is rye that has been coarsely ground. Flours labeled as “rye meal” or whole grain rye are more finely ground than pumpernickel, but still contain the bran, germ and endosperm of the rye. This makes it a whole grain flour similar in density to whole wheat flour. “Medium” rye flour has some parts of the rye kernel removed, making it a lighter flour that still behaves chemically like rye. Cream, light or white rye flours have only traces of the bran. These flours are lighter in color and texture, but still low in gluten, so the addition of some white wheat flour is still necessary when using these flours in a rye bread recipe.