Whose loaf is it anyway?

No small amount of what I am aiming for is driven by vanity. I see the photo finish crumb and I want to replicate it. I want to have done it at least once, and yet I have not. I see the aesthetic a banneton leaves when there’s no liner, concentric circles of flour sitting atop a piece of bread, and I want my photo to look like that. So I decided to do the final prove in the banneton without the liner. It worked well, just as well as with the liner, it left me wondering if poorly floured wood or poorly floured fabric would be harder to extricate a loaf from. My instinct says the plain wood banneton would be harder, but there’s also less surface area to stick to the dough. Nonetheless, I didn’t make that error, I hope to not have to find out in the future (though I’m sure I will), better to flour excessively and dust if off after.

I pushed the percent of whole wheat in this loaf pretty high, to 46%. Rin has told me that the higher the whole wheat, the longer the auto-lyse should be, in fact when auto-lysing a rye some folk let it run overnight. I did not let the auto-lyse run that long, in fact, I may try and push it further next time to four hours, as I only let it run two hours this time. Again I didn’t time the bulk prove, but let it run around eight hours.

I turned and folded the loaf on the counter with the hard scraper without flour, which I’ve done for the last few loaves and have had sufficient success with that. There are so many different ways to turn and fold a loaf of bread, with flour, without flour, I’m not trying to be dogmatic about one or another, and it seems from loaf to loaf they can differ, and baker to baker. I’ve been watching Trevor J Wilson not for any reason other than I saw his video linked and haven’t felt the need to poke around a ton more. He uses both flourless and floured surfaces for turning and folding.

I baked the loaf at 470 (I still need to measure what that really means) for 35 minutes with the top on, 35 minutes top off with the dutch oven, after a preheat to 510. I baked the flatbread at 500 for 20 minutes.

Dough
540 g bread flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
460 g whole wheat flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
800 g h2o
80% hydration
20 g salt

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

What I did right:
I am consistently making a decent loaf of bread. And the high whole wheat ratio tastes quite good in flatbread, it brings that earthy, deep note.
What I did wrong:
A decent loaf is not a great loaf. I need to push the bulk prove longer.
I need to oil the bottom of the tray more liberally for the flatbread, as you can see below, the inside the pan and outside the pan photos have a bit different shape and that is due to aggressive scraping I had to do to get the flatbread out.
What I learned:
I need to keep pushing the bulk prove. Until I get that photo finish crumb I won’t be satisfied.
Quattro formaggi is delicious but heavy, especially with a high percent whole wheat dough, it needs some acid to cut through that heaviness. I love adding sliced lemons for this.