Manuel's rye sour (roberta's sourdough rye to follow)+

1 sourdough

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 cup Rye berries freshly ground or 1 1/2 cups whole rye flour
1½ cup Water
½ teaspoon Milk
1 Grain (granule) yeast

Directions

Mix together the flour, water, milk and seed grain of yeast until smooth. The batter should be the consistancy of pancake batter. Keep it at room temperature, 65 to 80 fdegrees, in a non-metal container that is covered with a tea towel to keep out intruders. Let stand for 3 to 5 days, stirring twice a day, until pungently fragrant. If the odor becomes unpleasantly sour, you have let it get too warm and will have to start over.

TO STORE THE SOUR: Stor, undisturbed, in the refrigerator in an airtight nonmetalic container. It will keep much longer than anyone would think. We have used ours after as much as 2 months of total neglect, and found it sleepy, but alive. A black, watery liquid will usually collect on top. Don't panic, it is merely oxidation, like potatoes turning dark after they are cut. Just stir the black stuff back into the brew.

If your sour has been dormant in the refrigerator and you are in doubt as to whether to use it, bring it to room temperature and double its volume with rye flour and water. Allow it to sit out at room temperature, stirring twice daily, until it bubbles up. Stir, take a whiff-if the fragrance pleases you, it will certainly be good for the bread.

TO USE THE SOUR: When you want to use the sour in the dough, let it come to room temperature and give it a chance to bubble up, if it will-allow the better part of a day. Replace what you remove with fresh rye flour and water before refrigerating the sour again.For example, if you take out ¾ cup, mix in ¾ cup of rye flour and ¾ cup water, maintaining the pancake batter-like consistancy.

Recipe for Roberta's Sourdough Rye follows.

These 2 recipes came from Laurel's Bread Book typed up, used many times and endorsed by Mary Riemerman Submitted By MARY RIEMERMAN On 04-19-95

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