Yeah rye lets you have a lot of room for experimentation. I would dig out my two primary rye recipes but they would need to be adjusted as they are a varaiation of a french recipe adapted to the climate on cape cod. Also they require a levain and are in metric weights. I would just keep plugging away trying out stuff for your area and seeing what works best. If you do want to try the levain use a wheat flour to make it. Wheat flour sours much better than rye flour for some reason.

i love rye bread, especially sourdough. i often throw some rye into any sourdough loaf i'm baking, just because i love the sweet unique flavor. today i baked an all-rye sourdough, which i haven't done in a long time. of course the loaf is always dense, tart, chewy and moist--awesome for slathering with cream cheese, but not the bread you'd pick for french toast. today it came out particularly yummy.

i just do a direct natural leaven. i mix my starter with rye flour and water to the consistency of a thick pancake batter. when it's ripe i double the quantity with more flour and water and let it ripen again. (this time i make it thicker in consistency, more like a thick mud.) if i want a lot of bread i'll double it again, or else i'll make the dough at this point. making the dough means adding some salt and then more flour until the dough can be kneaded. it doesn't really require much kneading, which is good because the dough is sticky. then i pop it into loaf pans and bake it.

i just found this very interesting recipe online and think i'll try it next time i have a hankering for a strong rye loaf. you might like it too:
www.westonaprice.org/foodfea...ead.html

good luck,
alyson