Rye bread — the signature bread for the best Reuben sandwich — is typically denser than wheat-flour breads but it doesn’t have to be so dense that it’s flat and gummy with a super-compact crumb. Nathan Myhrvold founder of Modernist Cuisine and lead author of the “Modernist Cuisine” and “Modernist Bread” cookbook series has some well-researched advice on how to make fluffier rye bread at home. Choosing the right type of flour in your bread recipe can significantly change the texture of your rye bread. As Myhrvold explains “If you want a fluffier 100 percent rye bread you can’t use bran and germ flour; opt for a light finely milled rye flour that contains only endosperm.”
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Different types of rye flour are classified as light or white medium and dark. The main differences between the flours lie in how much of the endosperm bran and germ (the components of a rye grain) are used in the flour. Dark rye flours are considered whole grain because they use the entire rye grain and result in a dense bread that is also darker in color such as pumpernickel bread. Meanwhile light or white rye flours have the bran and germ removed and produce a lighter fluffier bread. Medium rye flour typically contains some of the bran but no germ. In addition to the bran germ and endosperm Myhrvold points out that the grinding of the flour (finely ground versus a coarser flour) can determine the texture and density of the bread.
In his international research Nathan Myhrvold and his team discovered that the volume and texture of rye bread varies across countries. They found that the rye breads they tasted in Germany Austria and the Nordic countries had a softer fluffier crumb than rye bread in the United States. “When our team tried to recreate them in our lab kitchen” he says “our breads were super dense.”
After some digging the food scientist discovered that European and American rye flours have significant differences that affect the texture and density of the bread including how the rye is grown and milled and how it creates structure in the dough. Specifically they found that German and Austrian flour mills grind their rye flour very finely and that “the finer the grind of the rye flour the fluffier the baked bread will be.” In addition to grinding their rye finely German and Austrian flour mills also remove the bran and germ which can reduce the volume of the bread.
