Join me in attempting to bake a pumpernickel that is black through-and-through. Please post your results in the comments, and also on my Facebook Group, Bread History and Practice.

Note: Just after publishing this on January 2, 2024, I discovered that I can read Carin Getner’s book, “Pumpernickel: Das Schwartz Brot Der Westfalen” 1991 through the miracle of my phone translation program. This is an important book on pumpernickel offering the kind of comprehensive narrative that is difficult to piece together from the kinds of sources I have been using. I would like to offer this revision to this recipe page.

(1.) Home baking was different from commercial baking. Home pumpernickel was simply a coarse rye meal mixed with hot water, left to ferment in wooden troughs without the addition of a starter. The production of the bread was structured as The structure for the gelatinized bread is the same as for the French Pain Bouilli as described similarly to the structure Marcel Maget describes for a French rye in his work, Le pain anniversaire à Villard d’Arène en Oisans, Paris, Éditions des Archives Contemporaines, 1989. 

The structure for the French bread was as follows:

⅓ of the rye is mixed with 100% of the water, which is added to the rye just off the boil. After mixing, the dough is covered, and left to ferment for 12 hours in a warm place. The rest of the flour is added at this point, the dough worked until fully mixed, and then it is covered and let to stand a further 12 hours. It is then formed and baked. The recipe has no salt.

If you do not have a wooden trough with sides that contain dried dough from previous bakings, then when the dough has cooled to lukewarm, and a small amount of starter, like 5%. If you want your bread to taste sour, then you would also add starter when the dough cools, even if you are mixing in a wooden trough.

Home made breads was baked in wooden molds for long bakes. Breads were stamped with the family’s stamp as the bread was often baked as part of communal bakes.

Commercial bakers began using metal molds with a lid. The molds were set into trays of water and the breads were “steamed” in the sense that at steamed pudding is steamed. Baked for a long time, at least 24 hours, in what was effectively 100C (212F).

Coarse meal absorbs less water than the flour used to make bread in the Alpine village as documented by Marcel Maget. I have been to that village twice to see how they made the bread, so this is a method that I understand first-hand. As the Getner text says that it was the majority of flour that as mixed with 100% of the water, I am going to propose that if we want to test the home recipe, then we mix 100% of the water just off the boil with 60% of the flour. As for my recipe, I suggest testing at equal weight of flour and water — so 100% coarse rye meal and 100% water. As stated, these are ideas for how we might get to an historic pumpernickel. Please post your experiments. I will also post my experiments.

I will add that commercial pumpernickel production shifted to metal covered molds sometime int he 19th century. Once in metal the baking system changed to “steaming.” The covered molds were set in water so that the bread was “steamed” in the sense of a steamed pudding. The bread as baked in a closed mold sitting in a pan of water in an oven. In the steamed model the bread is baked at 100C, 212F.

Black is what pumpernickel was. From the 16th century until well in the 19th the first thing that was noted about the breads was its color. To leave no room for interpretation, commentators described the bread as “black as coal” or “back as peat. A bakery that survived in Germany into the late 20th century described the bread as “pitch black”. I am focused on this idea that the bread was black, not deep brown. Black. The blackness will have come from the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction is a reaction we are all familiar with. It is what makes the crust of bread turn color and provides color and flavor to many of the foods we cook.

Pumpernickel is a bread in which the Maillard reaction is everything. It is the Maillard reaction gone wild. It is a bread in which the Maillard reaction is pushed to the extreme. I am sharing with you the recipe that represents my third recipe iteration. While the basic pumpernickel will have been simply rye meal and hot water, it seems that bakers sometimes added malted rye and/or grated pumpernickel to help reinforce the Maillard reaction, so this recipe concept should be understood as being influenced by commercial practice.

Here is how I worked out this recipe or I am preferring to say, my approach to creating a truly black pumpernickel. Firstly, I looked up the Maillard reaction in Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, online, and I had discussions with the Bard, the AI chatbot. Here are the conditions that optimize the Maillard reaction:

(1) amino acids

(2) reduced sugars

(3) alkaline environment

(4) moist environment

(5) baking below 180 C (350F).

Once I understood something about the chemistry of the Maillard reaction, I worked out an ingredient list and then an approach to structuring a recipe that would create a bread that would bake black.

Thus, the following approach to a pumpernickel dough was derived through hints of method from online texts, mostly in English, but also some advice derived from German texts as translated by Google, but, most importantly, the recipe was developed through discussions with Bard, the AI ChatBot. I set Bard the task of structuring a theoretical recipe using rye meal that would optimize the Maillard reaction. This is the first time I have found an AI chatbot to actually be helpful.

This recipe favors developing the amino acids and reduced sugars that are needed by the Maillard reaction.

(1) coarsely ground rye (low ph)

(2) diastatic rye malt (amino acids sugar)

(3) scalding hot water (sugars)

(4) high dough hydration (Maillard reactions like moisture)

(5) minimal starter (Maillard reactions prefer an alkaline environment)

(6) baking below 180C (350F) in closed container to maintain moisture while baking. (Maillard reactions stop as the temperature approaches 180C.

Here is what I am working with in terms of ingredient ratios. There is not a single path to an historic pumpernickel. What I offer you here will give you a bread that is unlike any that you are likely to have eaten, even if you live in Germany. It would take years to master the subtleties of this bread — this recipe will at least give you a start on a journey into lost flavors.

Bakers Math Recipe

100% coarsely ground rye. If you don’t have a flour mill, then I recommend using a food processor. If you can’t get rye berries easily, then make it whatever rye you can purchase as you will get somewhere with the test, but a fine flour may lead to a gummy interior.

20% diastatic rye malt. You can malt your own grains, there are many good videos online. You an also purchase malted rye grains online at Amazon, and at home brew suppliers. Diastatic malt means that the malting temperature was kept low. This would be used for a blond beer, so if you are not making your own then stay away from malted grains that have been toasted.

15% grated pumpernickel, pre-soaked. I don’t think the total amount of water in the dough matters very much in the sense that a difference in a few percentages of hydration does not fundamentally change the nature of the bread. If you like, measure out the water specified for the whole recipe and use some of that to soak your pumpernickel. The first time you make this recipe you won’t have left over pumpernickel to work with. Don’t worry. It is not a requirement, simply another ingredient that favors the Maillard reaction. If you are familiar with how ramen soups are constructed, what we are doing is like building the layers of umami ingredients that make ramen delicious. But, as there are layers of ingredients, and what one is going for is a gestalt, do not feel tripped up if you don’t have exactly what is called for, like grated pumpernickel . The bread that illustrates this post was made without the pumpernickel, so as if this writing I am not certain what it will do besides for sure increasing the density of flavor further pushing the taste beyond anything one has previously encountered in a bread.

0% – 5% starter. The Maillard reaction thrives in an alkaline environment. Rye is more alkaline than wheat flour. Historic references to the taste of the bread mention it sometimes being sweet, and other times intensely sour. This suggests to me that possibility of two very different approaches to the the bread similar to differences in approach to rye bread in the region of Villar d’Alene and Chazelet, France where one village does not add starter to their hot-water mixed bread, while the other village does resulting in the bread of one village tasting sour while in the othe, the village doesn’t add sour, the bread tastes sweet.

0% salt. I have no information about salt in historic pumpernickels and am not assuming it was added to the dough.

100% - 110% water just off the boil. AMOUNT NOT YET PERFECTED. My first test had been at 100% hydration. My second test was at 125% hydration. I had this idea that I ought to bake the bread in a wooden box with a wooden lid. I still think this is probably a good idea as I doubt that in the 18th century the molds were made of metal. I am testing my third loaf in metal, and as metal is more practical for people, otherwise you have to build your own bread mold, for this recipe I am suggesting using a metal bread pan, like a pullman loaf pan. The point of this story is that in a metal pan less moisture will be lost to evaporation. I suspect that 100% hydration is going to work, especially of the bread includes grated pumpernickel. My previous test – the loaf pictured here — was made with 125% hydration. While the initial mix, when the water was still scalding, made a dough that included little puddles of water, by the time the dough had cooled it was stiff. So, my suggestion — and I am guessing here — is to use 100% hydration if there is grated soaked pumpernickel in your dough and 110% if you don’t have pumpernickel to add.

Ingredients for a loaf made with 1kg rye meal.

1000 g rye meal

200 g diastatic malted rye

150 g grated pumpernickel

0 g – 50 g starter

0 g salt (I have no information on the use of salt in historic pumpernickels and have not used any.)

1000 g – 1100 g water just off the boil.

Procedures.

1. Measure out the water.
2. Grate, chop with an ax (not joking), and do whatever you need to do to break up the pumpernickel into small pieces. Use some of the water with which to soak the pumpernickel. When soaked, work with your fingers to create a mush or, being innovative, use a food processor. Press excess water back into your measured water.
3. Mix the rye malt, rye meal , and prepared pumpernickel in a bowl.
4. Heat the water to boiling, let the water come off the boil for a minute, and then pour over the ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon or other implement, and then cover and wrap in a blanket to keep warm for as long as possible. This is important. The coarse grain will take a while to absorb water and gelatinize. The gelatinization process releases sugars into the dough that are important for the Maillard reaction.
5. When lukewarm, add the starter.
6. While kneading is not important for gluten development in a rye dough, it is traditional to work the dough. Historically, the bread was made in loaves that weighed as much as 60 pounds. Working by hand in large vats, whether working the dough with fists punched into the dough, or with feet, they would never have been able to work the dough as much as we can with the small quantities we are working with. Thus, work the dough enough that it is thoroughly mixed, and you have a sense that it is smooth, completely homogenous, and feels right to you in some way.
7. To insure your bread doesn’t stick, line the baking tin with parchment paper. If you have a pullman loaf pan, then use that. Otherwise, cover your tin with aluminum foil.
8. The optimum baking temperatures to develop the Maillard reaction are between 140C and 165C. This is between 284F and 330F. Many texts describe the bread being baked at very low temperatures, even around the 100C, the temperature at which water boils. Historically, baking in a wood fired oven, the bread would have been being baked in a “falling oven.” The oven temperature declines with time as the oven cools. The ovens will have cooled from the loss of heat through the oven floor and walls, and also through the absorption of heat as the hundreds of kilos of water in the dough was heated. At least one text refers to a pumpernickel having a crust, like bark on a tree. In a sense, it probably doesn’t matter. Any temperature you choose between 110C (220F) will work. The higher the temperature the faster the Maillard reaction will take place, but it stops if you exceed 165C. The interior of the bread can never get over 100C as long as the bread is moist, but if you exceed 165C for a long period you can burn the crust, which is not desirable. This is a round about way to say that you can play with the temperature as the bread is baking or you can just choose a temperature within the 140C to 165C range, and let it bake. As I do not yet have the recipe fully developed I cannot advise how long it will take. The loaf that illustrates this post baked for 38 hours. Be sure to check the bread as it bakes. As I have not yet tested in a metal pan, I do not know whether the hydration is going to too high. You may find you need to release steam towards the end of baking. Please pay attention to the baking many many hours before you think it is done. Opening up the bread to check its progress is not going to hurt it in any way.

After baking, the bread would have been left for some days before eating. I would advise waiting at least until the following day to cut into it lest the interior be gummy. There are so many sugars in this bread that it molds easily! Store wrapped in a cloth, probably in the refrigerator. It also freeze well, and one should always set aside some of the loaf to either be dried or frozen for use in the next batch.