Estonian 100% rye sourdough bread a.k.a "black bread"

Here I describe how I make rye sourdough bread that is called "black bread" here in Estonia. It's kind of national food and pride here, too. And it tastes really good if made anywhere close correct. It can be made in a number of ways, there are tricks and caveats but it's worth trying out. For me it associates with my grandma. I remember her making the bread back in the beginning of eighties when I was a young boy. Oh that aroma...

The leaven (starter)

First rye leaven (starter) is needed. Making this would take 3 days but after 3 days you'd get kind of "young" starter, it's not mature yet. So it needs feeding. It should be fed in a way as wheat sourdough starter: take 1 part (e.g 30 g) leaven, add 3 parts (i.e 90 g) tap water, mix well and add 3 part s(i.e 90 g) rye flour. Mix well and leave to fridge overnight.
Do it for a month or so and the leaven will be very very good, very sour and very active.

Ingredients

So, now to the bread. The following recipe gives approximately 1 kg of bread.
Ingredients:
- 300 g leaven that's been fed previous day
- 300 g tap water at room temperature
- 350-400 g rye flour
- 10 g fine grained salt
- add seeds and stuff according to your taste:
  ~ 10 g dried ground garlic
  ~ 15-20 g flax
  ~ 20-30 g pumpkin seeds
  ~ 20-30 g sunflower seeds

Preparation of the dough

I'm doing the mixing with Kitchen Aid mixer but it can be done manually, too. Note - rye flour doesn't require kneading, just mix it well. It doesn't develop long proteins like wheat flour. However, it's very (very!) sticky dough. So wet your hands.

Add water to the bowl. Add leaven and mix well into the water. Add salt so it dissolves in the wet mix. Add seeds and mix. Add flour. I'm using bread mould so the dough is more liquid. However if you want to do bread that is called here "the floor bread", just a loaf, then add a bit more flour.
Put the dough into the mould or create a nice loaf. With a wet finger make 3 "proofing holes" into the loaf, smth like 2 cm deep.

Now the important part - let the dough rest at room temperature for min 1,5 hours, but the criteria here is visual - once you see the dough starts growing and you see the proofing holes getting filled it's time to start warming up your oven.

Baking

Rank the oven up to 230°C. Put the bread into the oven and bake it at 230 for 10-15 minutes. Now turn the temperature down to 170°C and bake it for ~50-60 minutes (1 hour).
The aroma starts spreading in the room in about 30 minutes after putting the bread into oven. Enjoy it and use it as a measure of control, too. I'm always baking with my nose more than with my eyes or hands.

After baking care

After taking the bread out of oven put it to a grill or somewhere where the air can get below the loaf. Cover the loaf with a moist tea towel and let it cool down for half an hour at least. This part is important. Rye bread develops stronger crust than wheat products in the oven. Moist towel would make the crust a bit softer.

Tasting

Now grab a good bread knife, cut a slice and add some real butter, maybe a pinch of salt ... Satisfaction guaranteed :)