Pumpernickel

Original Recipe from the Czarnecki Family’s Oaza Bakeries

30 lbs. sour
35 lbs. water (variable temp.)
2 1/4 lbs. salt
Coloring to suit (mix with water)
Caraway seeds to suit
2 lbs. yeast
For Pumpernickel add Pumpernickel meal to suit (about 4 lbs. to above)
Clear flour to suit to make stiff dough

To make sour:

1 gal. water (warm in winter)

8 lbs. rye flour

Mix and allow to stand 4 hours covered

Mix again at least:  

1 gal. water

8 lbs. rye flour

Has to stay about 4 hours

Mix again:

1 gal. water

8 lbs. rye flour

After 4 hours should be ready to use.  Nice flavor.  Sour is good.

The comments at the end of the recipe are those of the baker.

 My calculations  for fewer loaves

	100 loaves			10 loaves	5 loaves	4 loaves	2 loaves	1 loaf
	Lbs.	Oz.	Grams	Grams	Grams	Grams	Grams	Grams
Sour Starter (Rye)	30	480	13608	1360.8	680.4	544.32	272.16	136.08
Water	35	560	15876	1587.6	793.8	635.04	317.52	158.76
Salt	2.5	40	1134	113.4	56.7	45.36	22.68	11.34
Yeast	2	32	907.2	90.72	45.36	36.288	18.144	9.072
Pumpernickel meal—Dark Rye Flour	4	64	1814.4	181.44	90.72	72.576	36.288	18.144
Coloring to suit-usually molasses (Mix with water), cocoa, or dark barley malt syrup.  If using dark malt powder, try 85% malt powder and 15% boiling water, by weight.
Caraway seed to suit
Clear Bread, whole wheat, or unbleached white flour to make stiff dough
To make Rye Sour Starter
Water 1 gallon	8	128	3628.8	362.88	181.44	145.152	72.576	36.288
Rye flour 8 lbs.	8	128	3628.8	362.88	181.44	145.152	72.576	36.288
Let stand 4 hours, covered
Add:
Water 1 gallon	8	128	3628.8	362.88	181.44	145.152	72.576	36.288
Rye flour 8 lbs.	8	128	3628.8	362.88	181.44	145.152	72.576	36.288
Let stand 4 hours, covered
Add:
Water 1 gallon	8	128	3628.8	362.88	181.44	145.152	72.576	36.288
Rye flour 8 lbs.	8	128	3628.8	362.88	181.44	145.152	72.576	36.288
Let stand four hours
Ready to Bake
Make an egg wash: mix an egg with water or milk or cream and brush on the top of the loaves either before baking or about 10 minutes before they're finished baking. This will help brown the crust and soften it and make it shiny.

After final 4 hours, sour sponge should be ready to use. The longer it sits, the more sour the mix.  Can be stored in refrigerator after sour is finished. If you plan to save your starter find a sour dough site online to learn more. It is best to weigh all ingredients. 

To bake bread:  In the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook or in a large mixing bowl, combine the active rye starter with the water, coloring, salt, dark rye/pumpernickel meal.   Add the plain flour of your choice (bread flour recommended), and mix thoroughly with dough hook.  If working by hand, stir in as much of the flour as you can, then turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in the remaining flour. Knead 5 minutes. Knead the dough into a smooth ball. The dough may still be a little soft and tacky but should form into a smooth ball. 

Coloring Note:  Coloring can be molasses, cocoa, coffee, caramel powder, burnt sugar caramel that you make, dark barley malt syrup, or a combination of these.  

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turning once to coat. Cover and set at room temperature for 1 hour (hydrolyze). After an hour, working from four corners of the dough (still in the bowl) use your hand to lift the top edge of the dough over into the middle of the dough(stretch and fold). Repeat with the other 3 sides then flip the dough over. Cover and set at room temperature for another hour. Repeat the folding procedure 2 more times so the dough rises for a total of 3 hours. By now the dough should be lively, elastic and airy. If the dough is still sluggish give it another hour or two at room temperature.  A better way is to determine the temperature of the dough using an instant-read thermometer.  Place to go in a straight sided container and Mark or record the level of the dough. Consult the chart at the beginning of the sourdough recipes, letting the dough continue to rise/ferment until it reaches the level indicated on the chart.  (First rise)

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and fold each of the four sides into the middle again. Flip the dough over, shape into a ball and place in banneton or a bowl lined with a clean kitchen towel. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Anytime within the next 48 hours remove the dough from the refrigerator and place on a sheet of parchment paper.  Form the dough into an oval shape or loaf.  Use the parchment paper to transfer the loaf to a sheet pan, loaf pan or Dutch oven. Leave the parchment under the loaf.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and allow to rise until almost doubled in volume (about 1 – 1 ½ hours). the rising time will vary base on how active your starter was, the room temperature, etc. While the dough rises, preheat the oven to 375 °F. If you have a baking stone put it in the oven to preheat. When the bread is risen, use a sharp knife or blade to slash the top of the bread 4-5 times. Spray loaf and sides of oven with water and close door.  Can also place sheet pan on bottom shelf of oven and add water. In the alternative, use a second loaf pan as a cover to the loaf, and bake as described, omitting the extra water spray. Bake until the internal temperature reaches 200° -210F, about 35 - 45 minutes, longer if dough has been proofed in refrigerator. At the end of baking time, If a second pan has been used as a cover,remove the top pan and bake another 5 to 10 minutes until the loaf is the desired brown.   

OR: Score of the top of the loaf to allow for expansion, and use the parchment paper to transfer the loaf toi a Dutch oven. Leave the parchment under the loaf. Rice or clay baking weights can be placed under the parchment to keep the bottom of the loaf from burning.Cover the Dutch oven so that the bread bakes in an enclosed environment, keeping the moisture in.  If you choose this option, place the Dutch in the cold oven and turn the oven to 450° and bake for 45-60 minutes. Remove the cover and reduce the heat to 375 and bake for another 10 or 15 minutes until the loaf is browned and the internal temperature is 200-210°.

We got this recipe from Donald's mother, Victoria Czarnecki Piotrowski, who got it from one of her cousin, a baker in the family bakery, owned by her uncle Boleslaw (Bill) Czarnecki, who emigrated from Poland, and then by her brother, Harry Czarnecki.  Grandma made us swear on our lives we wouldn't tell anyone we had it.  It was evidently a closely guarded  secret in her day.  

Baking has always been a price-sensitive business, so bakers have always looked for ways to economize. Pumpernickel reflects this impulse.

Today, heating an oven is as simple as turning a dial, but hundreds of years ago, stoking an oven’s fire was hard work. It was also costly. When bakers let the fire die down and went home, they were reluctant to waste the oven’s waning heat, so to make use of it, they made pumpernickel bread. This bread, which was developed sometime before the 18th century, was baked overnight in the oven’s residual heat. During the long baking time, the water in the dough evaporated, and the dough turned into an aromatic, deeply flavorful, almost black (but not burnt) loaf of bread. Today, tradition still holds that true pumpernickel has a dark crust, even if it’s not baked in exactly the same way.

Classic pumpernickel bread is originally from the Westphalia region of Germany, where it is also known as Schwartzbrot (black bread). It’s made with dark rye flour and often uses cracked or whole soaked rye grains. Because the rye flour and grains provide little structure, the bread is typically baked in tin pans, so it can hold its shape.  Modern bakers add bread flour to bake the dough, more manageable.

 Although traditional pumpernickel has a touch of sweetness in it, likely from the grain, it doesn’t contain sweeteners. Mass produced pumpernickel by contrast is likely to be made with molasses or another sweetener. Traditional pumpernickel doesn’t have added coloring either – its deep, dark color comes from using dark colored pumpernickel flour and the darkening of natural sugars that occurs during the prolonged time in the oven. Today, however, industrial producers aren’t going to tie up their ovens with long baked breads. Instead, many modern pumpernickels contain coffee, cocoa powder, or caramel coloring in an effort to quickly replicate the dark look of classic pumpernickel.

There’s another moneysaving technique associated with pumpernickel. Traditionally, if there was any bread left in the bakery at the end of the day, it couldn’t be sold the next day because, well, who wants to buy day old bread? Crafty bakers started to grind their old bread, dry it, and then mix it into the next day’s pumpernickel dough. This kind of thing isn’t done in commercial bakeries in the United States today, but we find it to be common in German recipes for rye bread.

Donald, who worked in the family bakery when he was in high school, said that day old danish and rolls would be ground up and added to the dough and that is what made Oaza Bakery's pumpernickel so delicious and so unique.  He remembered the bakers taking fresh loaves from the oven, cutting off the top and adding a stick of butter.  When it was melted, they would tear the bread apart and eat it.