Sourdough: make the sourdough, if you don’t have some already, like any instruction that suits you from the internet. It usually takes around three to four days to mature. I used the Shipton Mill organic dark rye to make the starter and it worked really well.

Pre-dough (let it rest over night or for 12 to 14 hours):
150g of sourdough starter
200g light rye flour type 1150 or 997
100g water

Main-dough:
Pre-dough
370g light rye four type 1150 or 997
230g water
12g salt
2 table spoons of honey

In a big bowl mix the pre-dough together and let it rest overnight, covered in a warm place. There is no need for mixing it for long like with wheat bread. It should end up being a sticky mass.

After maturing add 230g of lukewarm water to the pre-dough and mix it so it is mostly dissolved. Then add salt and honey and the remaining flour, mix well and push together or pack together. Scrape all the bits from the sides of the bowl and build a kind of mountain in the middle of the bowl. Let it rest covered for 30 to 45 minutes. The dough should have relaxed and expanded only a little but not much. Sprinkle your surface and hands with plenty of flour and scrape out the dough mixture from the bowl (still quite sticky) and lightly push it together to a round form. This might require a fair amount of flour and some patients. Use your hands and always push the dough from the bottom as if you wanted to tuck in sheets under a mattress. Once you have a good round form rub the top with flower and place it on a thick oven tray and let it rest for another 2 hours in a warm place. 30 minutes before the dough is ready preheat the oven to 250 degree. After the 2 hours the dough should have expanded quite a bit and a nice pattern of cracks should have appeared on the surface. Place the oven tray with the bread more or less in the middle of the oven and bake for the first 10 minutes on 250 degree and then another 40 minutes on180 degree. You can add a splash of boiling water in a lower oven tray, when you put the bread in, to create some steam. This needs to happen fast so the steam does not escape from the oven. After a total of about 50 minutes the bread should be ready and left for another half a day or overnight to rest. I often leave the bread in the turned off oven with the door half open. Light that it is out of sight and I do not get tempted to cut a slice before it is ready. The bread is still backing on the inside and needs to rest.