German Sourdough Black Bread

German Bread, similar to Pumpernickel

Missing yet more of the thousands of German breads from home, this German Sourdough Black Bread (Or “Vollkornbrot” as we call it) was high on my list of them. A proper wholegrain bread. Dark with Rye, full of grains and sunflower seeds. The ideal bread for one of my favourite German sweet spreads “Grafschafter Goldsaft”. A sugar beet sirup, which is sweet, but not too sweet, with molasses undertones, yet very different and addictive.

Updated Recipe

About 2 years after posting this recipe, I felt it’s time for an update. I made the bread many times and have since refined the method and ingredients a little, making it easier accessible and improve small niggles I had, while implementing feedback I got from you too.

What has Changed and Why

• I slimmed down the ingredients list a bit consolidating the different types of grain berries I used into one, to simplify the shopping for you. You still can use different ones if you like of course, but it works perfectly with just one type and you have the choice between at least 3 different ones, depending on what you can find where you live.
• The same goes for flour. Where I used einkorn and emmer flour before, I now state you can use one of them, to make it a bit simpler.
• The rye flour however remained the same, as it is the classic flour in this traditional German bread.
• I removed the malt syrup, which might be harder to get for some of you and use only molasses.
• I removed the diastatic malt powder. It’s lovely and I often still add it, but it’s not a necessity.
• Maybe the biggest change I made is that I now advise you to soak the cracked grain berries.
  Back in time I followed the often used German method of simply fermenting them for 24h with the sourdough, but as soon as you get a pack that might have sat on the shelf for a while, this often turns out a bit too hard, instead of giving you that yielding softness classic Schwarzbrot is known for.
• My ratio for the sourdough starter has changed pretty drastically to a 1:7:6 ratio from the standard 1:1:1, giving you a less sour Levain, which ferments both slower and less acidic. This allows you flexibility for when you start your bread (no watching for sourdough peak activity like a hawk!) and when fermenting your dough, as the bread will turn out great even after up to 3 days in the fridge. If you have that type of patience. Or just don’t get around to baking it earlier because life gets busy.
• To prevent any potential “flying crust” and get the texture perfect, I added 15-20 minutes kneading time to the recipe, releasing starches and pentosans (the natural ‘glues’ in rye), allowing the water to bind more effectively. Following this with a lower, slower bake prevents an “explosive” oven spring that would otherwise puff up the crust before the internal moisture has a chance to evaporate.
• Last but not least I have halved the base recipe. While the classic German version is made in a very large Pullman bread pan, not everyone has one of those. The new amount fits perfectly into a classic bread pan most of you will have at home. And you can still use the 2x/3x scaling function in the recipe card if you’d like to make more.
• All of this results in a softer and more balanced loaf of grainy goodness, that I’m very sure you’ll love just as much as I do.

But wait, there is more!

With my recent exploration into sourdough protein territory (Is it even a territory quite yet? I mean, if barely anyone is playing with the options? Anyway…onwards) I figured I’d see how this bread fares if I add protein and decided to give you a new recipe on top of this one, with the higher protein and create a video for it too, showing the slightly unusual type of dough, if you are used to “normal” sourdough bread and how easy it really is to make.

Because believe it or not, this one needs no shaping, folding, pinching and creating tension. You just stir it together, let it do its thing and plop it into a bread pan to bake.

Now, back to what I love about this recipe, and you will too!

Very Healthy and High Fiber

This very traditional German Schwarzbrot (Literally translates into Black Bread) is made with dark rye flour, whole grain berries that are just crushed a bit, and emmer or einkorn flour. In addition it has sunflower seeds for nutty crunch and flax seeds for even more fiber and healthy fats.
All of that means it has a low glycemic index, meaning it doesn’t cause your blood sugar to spike, making it a great bread choice for diabetics. In fact, my father, who was a diabetic only ate black bread for many years.

Gut Friendly Due to Sourdough

If you add sourdough to all the great effects from the above mentioned fiber, you get a truly gut healthy bread with plenty of good bacteria, keeping you regular and your tummy very happy. But it does more than that. The slow fermentation with sourdough breaks down a large part of the phytic acid from the whole grains, allowing your body to better absorb vitamins and minerals contained in them.

German Black Bread Is Low In Calories

While a slice of standard sourdough bread has around 200 calories and won’t keep you full for very long, this German black bread has only about 119 calories per slice and will keep you fuller for longer due to the high amount of dietary fiber (about 3.6g per slice. That’s 13% of your daily recommended amount).

Incredibly Flavorful Whole Grain Rye Bread

With all this talk about health and macros, you might think this would taste like “a slice of sadness” (as I’ve heard some keto breads described), but the opposite is true. I often eat this for dessert with a thin layer of butter and a drizzle of molasses or Grafschafter Goldsaft (German beet syrup).

Whole grains have a high starch content, which is usually their “downfall” in processed white flour. However, when you use the whole berry, the fiber slows down the sugar absorption. Because of this, you’ll notice a natural sweetness as you chew; your saliva contains enzymes that start breaking those complex starches down into simple sugars right in your mouth. 

The flavor is nutty with a substantial bite that isn’t “hard.” The sunflower seeds add a buttery softness that balances the grains, which have been tenderized by the soaking and fermentation process. Then there’s the sourdough magic—that gentle tang and malty depth that makes it taste like “proper” bread.

To balance the acidity from the long fermentation and buttermilk (which helps soften the grains), I add molasses. It lends a hint of caramel that deepens during the long, slow bake.

Very Forgiving and Flexible

This bread frankly keeps surprising me. One time I literally forgot to add the emmer/einkorn flour, cutting down the flour amount by more than half. Yet, the bread still came out delicious. It just needed a little longer to bake.

You can change up the grains and flours to your heart’s desire as it doesn’t have the delicate gluten structure your standard sourdough bread develops. There is no perfect rise to keep chasing. Just nutty, hearty fiber goodness, which will allow you to experiment until you find your perfect grain mix.

Don’t get scared by the long-ish list. Most of it is pantry stuff you probably already have at home, especially if you like to bake.

Note:

Cups, due to the possibility of compacting the flour while dragging the container through it, can give you wildly different results. Use a tablespoon to gently fill the cup with flour, then drag the back of a knife over it to level. This should give you the closest to the standard 120g per cup of flour.

Alternatively, if you have kitchen scales, assume 120g flour per cup and weigh it out.

In many of my recipes I will give gram measurements for this reason, but you can always switch to the american measurements in the recipe card.

substitutions

Equipment Used

• Stand Mixer – Such as KitchenAid. I usually try my best avoiding a firm recommendation for a rather expensive tool, but for this bread, you’ll absolutely love it. By adding a bit of kneading time, we release the starches and pentosans (the natural ‘glues’ in rye), allowing the water to bind more effectively. Following this with a lower, slower bake prevents an “explosive” oven spring that would otherwise puff up the crust before the internal moisture has a chance to evaporate, leading to the dreaded “Flying crust”. Could you do this by hand? Sure, but kneading a really sticky dough for about 15-20minutes is a serious workout!
• Bread Pan – A standard 9×5-inch (about 2lb/1kg) loaf pan works beautifully.
• Food thermometer – I don’t list this often as needed, but ideally for this bread you want one, to check the final temperature at the center toward the end of baking, to get the texture just right.
• You may use the “knocking method” to tap the bottom of your bread, and if it sounds hollow-ish it’s done. But that’s just very unpleasant with hot bread. And because black bread is…well…black, you have no grade own browning to judge by.
• Vitamix/Grain mill – If you can’t find cracked grains, a high speed blender like Vitamix for about a minute on medium speed works well. Of course, if you have a grain mill you can set to just crack the grains, that would be the most professional method. Some recipes say you can use a high powered food processor, but frankly, my Sage/Breville isn’t up to the task without me fearing for the blades.

KitchenAid

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Nordic Ware Naturals Loaf Pan

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clip on thermometer

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How to Make this

Despite the long and strange looking list of ingredients (if you are not used to German Sourdough Black Bread that is), this requires very little hands-on time. Only a lot of resting time, to soften the grains.

Day 1: Preparing the Levain and Grain Soak

Levain

• Prepare your Levain my mixing all the ingredients and leaving it lightly covered on your counter overnight. Due to the feeding ratio, It’ll be ready to use the next day, whenever you get around to it.

Soak Your Grains

• Pre-soak the cracked grain berries by covering with about double their volume of just boiled water. Leave them covered on the counter overnight.
• If you are in a hurry…well…half hurry, as this is, by nature, a slow bread, you can boil the cracked grains for about 60-90 minutes until they are soft and then drain them.
• Drain well in a sieve or colander for at least 10 minutes, shaking them occasionally, before mixing into the dough. Otherwise you may have a too wet dough.
• If you have very fresh grain berries, you could try to skip this step and ferment the dough for at least 24h, but they will remain slightly harder than the pre-soaked version.

Note

In some recipes I saw people carefully measuring the water they soak their grains in. I found, with the about 450ml (under 2 cups) you need, the grain is covered at first, but soon expands above the water, meaning you have some dryer and some wetter berries, leading to weird changes in texture and hard grains in parts.

You could argue that different sizes of grain berries soak up very different amounts of water and you’d be entirely correct. I weighed differences of up to 1/2 cup/120ml when soaking different types of grains. But that’s where the core temperature at the end of baking comes into play. If your bread is at 205°F (96°C) the water has evaporated to the degree that gives this bread the ideal texture. You might bake a little longer or shorter, but it’ll still work beautifully with soft grains throughout the dough.

Day 2: Mixing the No-Knead Rye Dough

Combine the Wet Ingredients

• Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl: buttermilk, sourdough starter, and molasses (or honey). Mix thoroughly.

Stir The Dry Ingredients

• To your bowl of well soaked and drained grains, add the dark rye flour, Einkorn/Emmer Flour (or substitute wholegrain flour), sunflower seeds, Flax seeds, and kosher salt.
• Use your dough whisk or a sturdy spoon to give everything a good stir.

Mix The dough Of Your German Schwarzbrot

• Add the wet ingredient mixture to the dry ingredients in the bowl. Knead, ideally in a stand mixer, for about 15-20 minutes on low.
• While this sounds like a very long time, it gently releases the starches and pentosans (the natural ‘glues’ in rye), allowing the water to bind more effectively, helping to prevent the dreaded “flying crust” you can see in the picture on the topic above.
• Here is the before and after look:

• It will be very soft and sticky, looking more like a thick banana bread batter than typical sourdough bread. This is working as intended.
• There is no windowpane test or similar with this dough. It’s also very forgiving when it comes to the fermentation time.

Day 2 (Afternoon/night): Overnight Cold Fermentation

Transfer To Bread Pan and Overnight Fermentation

• Grease a standard 9×5-inch bread pan.
• Because of the long kneading time, I skipped the typical bulk proof and simply went ahead with the cold fermentation. You can add the bulk proof if you like. Whatever fits your schedule.
• Now you have 2 choices: If you know your bread pan is perfectly non-stick, just sprinkle it with some oats.

• If you are like me and are occasionally unlucky with sticky dough, line it with baking parchment. I show you some steps to do this neatly in the video.

• Then sprinkle some rolled oats into the pan, to give your loaf the classic look.
• Transfer the dough into a greased/Lined bread pan. This works best with a rubber spatula.

• Your dough will come to the very top of your pan. That’s what you want, as it won’t rise very much.
• Sprinkle the top with some more oats.
• Cover with some cling film or a shower cap and allow to overnight ferment in the fridge.

Day 3 – Baking Your Dark Sourdough Rye Bread

A Note on Scoring

A classic German Black Bread (Schwarzbrot) is usually not scored, but allowed to crack open naturally where it wants. This is what you see in the main pictures of the post and why it looks rather…wild.
I did score my bread in the previous version, but felt it contributes to said possibility of “Flying Crust” as it “cuts” through the center and with that destabilises any crust that forms. 

Be aware though, due to the very high hydration, if you score, you’ll want to make a big and wide score, not a razor sharp one, as that will close within seconds.

For this loaf, I went with poking it with a skewer a few times. And looking at the outcome, I’d say that worked quite well.

The moral of the story: Try it out. Go with your preferences. And if the crust does come off a little? You just snack on it and pretend you wanted crustless slices anyway. That’s what I did anyay.

Bake Your Sourdough Black Bread

• Take your Bread Pan out of the fridge. The dough should have risen a small bit, just about to the rim of the pan, but not as much as your classic sourdough bread by a long shot.
• Preheat the oven to 320°F (160°C).
• Place a heavy-duty cast iron skillet or a stainless steel baking tray on the rack below where you’ll bake the bread for adding steam in the first 15-20 minutes. Avoid glass, as it can shatter when you add the water.
• Once you push your bread into the oven, add about 1 cup of water to the heatproof container you pre-heated in your oven and close the door. This will create steam to give the bread a bit of an initial burst of rising and later help the crust get crisp, but not overly hard.
• After about 30 minutes of baking open the oven door briefly, to let any potentially remaining steam escape and close the door again.
• Bake for about 130 to 150 minutes or until the bread reaches an internal temperature of 205°F (96°C).
• I usually rotate my bread about halfway through the baking, as my oven browns unevenly.
• If your crust looks like it might be getting too dark in the last 30 minutes (I know, hard to tell with this dark bread!) you can cover it losely with some kitchen foil. I usually enjoy the dark brown bits, as they are full of flavor!

Allow Your Bread to Cool. Really.

• Once baked, remove the bread from the oven and let it cool in the tin for a few minutes. Then transfer the bread to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.
• And when I say “completely”, that’s at least 8 hours or, better, 24 hours.
• If you slice it too early, the insides may still be sticky, and it’ll be very tricky to get neat, clean slices.
• That being said: While for most breads you’d use a serrated knife, for this one you’ll want a sharp, straight blade to cut cleanly through the grains, without dragging them and breaking the slice. It may take a bit of practice to get those thin slices that are so classic for Schwarzbrot.

• You could always use an electric slicer (again, without serration), but not everyone has one of those.
• Contrary to your usual sourdough bread, this one gets better over the next days and lasts for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container.
• Enjoy your homemade German Protein Black Bread with Sourdough!
  
  I love mine with some cream cheese, a few slices of tomato and a sprinkle of Maldon salt. Alternatively, butter with a bit of molasses or German Beet Syrup is either breakfast or dessert!
  
  And if you loved this version, be sure to try the protein version. It might look very similar, but has 50% increased protein.

How To Store

• This Whole grain black bread keeps in an airtight container on your counter for up to 2 weeks. You can also store it in the fridge for about the same time.
• It freezes fabulously well in either a freezer bag or wrapped tightly into clingfilm, then kitchen foil.
• Either whole or in slices, separated by baking parchment, so you can grab one at a time.
• You can also toast it. This will intensify the lovely nutty flavor and re-crisp the crust in all the right ways.

Now I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Have you tried this? Did you enjoy it?
What other recipes would you like to see?

And if you enjoyed this recipe, please consider rating, sharing, or leaving a comment – your feedback truly helps my blog grow!

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