All flour to the people

Ah yes. Getting closer to the open crumb that everyone posts on the gram to show off how good at bread they are. I am not good at bread, neither like that, nor generally. Again I forgot to reduce the temperature of the oven when I put the loaf in (the first loaf, the second loaf I remembered) and thus had a nice coal crust. I was distracted, but as there are many adages for excuses being like this or that, I’ll spare you. I did make a few changes in my technique, and a few refinements, and as promised, I took dough temperatures.

I auto-lysed the 1 kg flour and 800 g water as a single unit for two hours then split it as best I could, I measured it to be roughly a fifty fifty split but I’m not bothered by a few percentage one side or the other. I then mixed in the levain, which was nice and runny, with a fermented, not boozy yet, but banana almost beer smell with plenty of little bubbles. I started the bulk ferment at 10 am, and measured the dough temp around every hour or so. Here’s what I got: 12:30 am 72° F, 1:30 pm 72° F, 3:30 pm 74° F, 5 pm 75° F, 6:30 pm 78.5° F, midnight 80° F. So 80° F by the time I folded and turned them and put them in the fridge for the final prove. And even then, I would have pushed it if I didn’t want to go to bed.

I turned and folded without flour, and messed that up slightly because my hands still aren’t confident. The dough scraper sticks (I intend to keep a trough with water nearby next time to see if this can help it be more wet), the dough sticks to the countertop (which I intend to spray with water as well next time). I used rice flour this time on the bannetons (I always feel odd writing the plural of banneton with an “s”, they definitely seem more of the geese mice sheep flavor of noun but I don’t make the rules) and that seems to have made the difference and I needed little peeling of the loaf from fabric or wood.

Finally, I have two cast iron pans (this is not true as I have six cast iron pans but only two are relevant for now), one is shallow, the other rather deep, and I have decided to abandon my dutch oven for these, the shallow going on the bottom and the deep on top. This allows me to set the loaf down in the shallow cast iron without playing Operation with worse penalties - I can turn the loaf out onto the counter top and lay it in the cast iron rather easily now. I am still using corn meal but have switched to a finer grain after feedback on the texture of the larger grain on the bottom crust. The cast iron rendered a loaf I am very happy about, if relatively taller than the previous loaves, I’m curious the forces at work there if it’s all from the cast iron (I assume so as that is the biggest change) but I’m not up to date on the thermodynamic forces at work in my oven / with a loaf of bread. So we’ll have to see what happens with subsequent loaves. I’m set on the cast iron going forwards.

Dough
800 g bread flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
200 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 (Central Milling Brand Organic)
100 g water

What I did right:
Switching to cast iron.
What I did wrong:
A constant refrain - my timing. I would have pushed the proof if not for the lateness of the hour.
What I learned:
Going hand in hand with what I did wrong, my dough is “cold”, only passing the mid 70s eight hours into the bulk prove. Having read Ken Forkish’s book and then promptly ignoring his suggestion of adding 95° F water, I think I’ll listen to him. The dough warmed - partially from the location (being a Western facing room and in the sun) - partially from the house warming through the day - but I’ll be curious to see how the dough behaves when I start it at a higher temperature.