Recipe 19: Rye Bread

Has anyone ever tried Rye Bread before? 

I hadn't, so on Thursday there was a food market in Hammersmith, there were a few bread stalls and one of them happen to sell this type of bread! My friend, Gina kindly bought the loaf as I stupidly went into a market with no money on me! I also need to note, how heavy it was, it weighed a ton! So we both tried a slice of the bread and we're not fans. I didn't like the taste at all, I'm not even sure how to describe it.
Rye Bread is meant to be the healthiest kinds of bread around, it helps with bloated stomachs and also makes your stomach flatter in the long term! It also packed nutrition's, probably why it doesn't taste that nice!

As you can probably tell, I wasn't looking forward to this from the start as soon as I opened that packet of flour, it looked and smelt like the dreaded malt flour! When you started to mix all the ingredients together my fear was answered – it was exactly like it!!

The mixture was very dry and hard to knead instantly, almost nearly as crumbly as the malt flour but this one managed to stay together – just!
In the book it says the preparation for this bread is 8 hours! So it needed to rise for 4 hours, which to me it didn't look no different. Then after this process, knock the air out (which there hardly any) and then you have to put in a proving basket for another 3 hours at most and this again, didn't make much difference!

So it went in the oven and didn't really expand or rise, just stayed in it's original lump! I'm not sure where I'm going wrong with the Rye / Malt Flour, I mean it's the same process as the other breads, nothing really different about the other ingredients, just the flour but for some reason it's just not working for me! Maybe next time I should try adding more water see if that makes a difference? Last time with the Malt Bread I thought I may have bought the wrong flour but with this one it was definitely the correct flour so must be something I'm doing wrong with it and plus the fact it's not the best kind of flour to use!

Reviews? After trying it the other day, I didn't fancy having another slice! My Dad tried a little and said it tasted Okay. The rest of my family didn't want to try it as they said it smelt, which it does!