I've been baking 100% Rye Sourdough for about 12 years. I try to minimize
cleanup effort. I bake the dough in a loaf pan. I mix the dough in a flat
17 cup Tupperware bowl (discontinued item), and I wear green "plastic/rubber"
food prep gloves to handle the dough. I use a large melamine spoon to mix the
dough, with help from a small (2x2") hard plastic scraper.

Towards the end of the mixing, I rub off the small amount of rye dough stuck to
the gloves, and incorporate it back into the dough.

I have discovered two similar methods, beginner and advanced. Once one gets
the feel for working with such a soft dough using the beginner method, then
one is ready for advanced method.

The beginner method disturbs the dough after the primary fermentation, while
the advanced method distrubs the dough much less. With 100% rye, there is
actually not much difference between the methods, but with 24% rye and 76%
unbleached wheat flour, the difference is considerable (try it, you will see
what I mean, I am too lazy to explain it any further).

I will now post the recipe, so that there is a complete context in which to
understand what I am doing.

1st leaven sponge (1pt wide mouth mason jar)
-----------------
34g - storage leaven (from refrigerator)
38g - water
29g - flour (100% SG Org Rye)
----
101g - ferment for 7 hours, covered (~~ 78-deg F), with SDI SF starter it
rises to 4x volume

2nd leaven sponge (17c mixing bowl)
-----------------
101g - 1st leaven sponge, ripe
126g - water
97g - flour (Rye)
----
324g - to be divided
-19g - for storage leaven, details omitted (again, too lazy)
----
305g - ferment 11 hours, covered (overnight)

final dough (17c mixing bowl - the same)
-----------
305g - 2nd leaven sponge, ripe
182g - water
420g - flour (Rye)
1.125% - salt (1 + 1/4 + 1/8 tsp Lima sea salt)
----
907g = 354g water + 553g flour (64% hydration)

Now for the method.

o push ripe leaven aside with spoon

o add all water to space freed up by prior step

o add all salt, wait 30 sec for salt to hydrate

o add a small amount of flour to the salt water, mix with spoon

o repeat prior step until salt water/flour is pancake batter consistency

o mix leaven and buffered salt mixture together until homogeneous

For the beginner method, reserve 55g of the total flour (10%).
For the advanced method, reserve 1Tbs of the total flour.

o continue to add a quantity of flour to the dough mixture, and mix until
all of the newly added flour is fully hydrated

o repeat prior step until all of the flour (except for the reserved quantity)
has been mixed into the dough. at a certain point, the dough will begin to
come together into a rough ball, and it will be not so easy to work. use
the scraper to move the wetter dough from the spoon back into the main
dough mass. use the scraper to move any drier peices of dough stuck to the
bowl back into the dough mass. for a man, i am not so strong, so if i can
mix the dough ball so that it is fully hydrated, then so can you. note
that my hands are still clean, and i haven't put on the gloves yet.

Ferment the dough, covered, for 1 1/2 hours at 78-deg F. It will expand
to 1 1/2 to 2 times in volume.

Now, put on the gloves. The goal is to free the dough mass from the bowl,
and to lightly coat it with flour, so that it can be manipulated with a
minimum of amount of dough sticking to the gloves.

Use the 2x2" scraper and sprinkle a little of the flour over the top and
exposed sides of the dough mass, then free a portion of the dough from the
bottom of the bowl, sprinkle a little flour on the just uncovered and freed
area of the bottom of the bowl, continue around until the dough mass has
been coated with flour and is not stuck to the bowl anymore.

The dough will be very soft, it needs to be handled very gently, otherwise,
the coating of flour will be breached, and then you will have a big sticky
mess on your hands.

Now the goal is to incorporate all of the (reserved) flour into the dough
mass, so that it is completely mixed in and fully hydrated. Actually, a
very fine coating of flour will remain on the dough, just enough so that
the dough can be shaped into its final (loaf for pan, round for free form)
shape.

With the beginner method, one has a lot of flour to incorporate into the
dough, so folding and gentle compression will be used to do this. One will
slowly develop a feel for the dough, as this "very gentle kneading" action
takes place. Be gentle and patient, and slowly, the dough will begin to firm
up, and will become much easier to handle.

With the advanced method, one has just a very small amount of flour to work
into the dough, fortunately, the dough is less hydrated to begin with, so
that with sufficient practice of the beginner method, one is able to manage.

Note that at the end of the beginner method, one is actually entering into
the advanced method, but with an "on the job training" lesson being learned
at a gradual pace.

It is really easy to breach the flour coating when transferring the formed
dough loaf into its pan for final proofing.

I use a pan that is about twice the volume of the dough mass, so that it
is easy to tell when to light the oven and commence baking.

Now for the remainder of the recipe,

o proof the loaf until it reaches the top of the pan (~~ 50 minutes)

o preheat oven at 350-deg F, for 35 minutes

o slash dough (determine experimentally - where it cracks after baking)

o spray top of loaf with a fine mist (optional)

o bake at 350-deg F for 45 minutes

o done, interior temp should be about 200-deg F

o remove loaf from pan, let cool on a wire rack for at least 5 hours

I would recommend at least another 18 hours of rest before attempting to
slice and consume this bread.

Actually, I prefer a soft crust, so after the initial 5 hour cool down,
I put the loaf in a plastic bag for the remaining 18 hours.

Due to the porosity of the rye dough, the loaf will have shrunk a bit from
its fully proofed size before baking.

I apologize for the formatting of this post, I am using an unfamiliar editor,
I will switch back to my usual editor in the future.

Enjoy,
--
Jeff Sheinberg -- jeff (at) bsrd (dot) net