And God said, Let there be loaf: and there was loaf. And God saw that the loaf was good: and God divided the loaf from the darkness.

The previous loaf was a wee bit on the wet side, 85% hydration was sticky and I don’t have the seemingly ambiently moist hands these master bakers have in their videos where they can handle dough elegantly and not have it stick at all. For the auto-lyse I have been mixing the dough more thoroughly and this is better, there’s decent structure after an hour, before I mix and fold I can feel it. Obviously this adds to the total time, but I’m budgeting for it. As loaves go, these were fairly standard. I bulk proved a single dough and cut in half with the hard scraper, then folded and wrapped them in plastic wrap and final proved them overnight in the fridge.

I have been pre-heating my oven to 515 then baking at 475, which has improved both the crumb and the interior of the bread. I still haven’t used a laser thermometer to see what the actual temperature is but my oven door leaks heat (something I need to address) so turning the heat up is the counter move. Dialing up the whole wheat on this has been good, not that I have a particular beef with bread flour, but I romanticize the loaves that peasants made and in my ignorance I assume the closest flour to what they used is whole wheat.

I also added a little more salt, bumping the ratio up to 2.5%. There wasn’t much of a difference between 2% and 2.5% and I generally enjoy putting salty things on bread, so in the interest of longevity I’ll stick to 2% going forward.

Dough
700 g bread flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
300 g whole wheat flour (King Arthur Brand Organic)
800 g h2o
80% hydration
25 g salt

Levain
20 g starter
100 g all purpose flour (King Arthur Brand Organic)
100 g water

What I did right:
I didn’t rush either proof and ended up with a good loaf with open crumb.
What I did wrong:
I need a moment of zen before handling the dough if I’m going to try such a high hydration. I generally need more practice and familiarity with wet dough, but in the mean time, I need to mentally practice what I’m going to do so that when I’m suddenly handling rather wet dough it’s hard to stay on track.
What I learned:
My oven. Turning up the temperature to adjust for miscalibration made for a better loaf with good, thick, crisp crust.