You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you'll find, you get what you knead

This bread had the most open crumb of all of the loaves I have baked. That does not mean it was the best loaf I have baked. I still lust for the photo finish crust, as these loaves were still not what I aspire to. I have learned that handling a 750 g loaf is too large at the moment, I still don’t have the control and finesse I need to handle that size of loaf comfortably. So I decided to make a smaller loaf, specifically in this case, two 350 g (of flour) loaves. They both turned out okay, though baking them for the same time as I bake larger loaves (500 g flour, etc) resulted in a little more brown than brown.

I started normally enough, I began the levain around nine pm and left it out all night, it was active, though not pourable, the next day. I mixed the water and flour and auto-lysed for two hours, the dough was 28.57% whole wheat so I both wanted a long auto-lyse and wanted to give the levain an extra two hours. I guess I should have let the levain go a few more hours because after eight hours at “room” temperature I could tell the loaves weren’t going to be ready proving until the next day so I let them go overnight. I ended up letting the bulk prove go for 24 hours before turning and folding. I think going forward I’m going to measure the temperature of the dough as it proves, I have a laser thermometer after all, why not use it?

I turned and folded the dough easy enough, a benefit of the smaller loaves was the ease of this stage. I then did the final prove at room temp in two bannetons, one with a liner, one without. I did not use rice flour so the dough stuck, and I was able to answer my previous question - though the dough initially stuck more to the wood, once I separated the few sticky points it all came off easier due to far fewer points of contact, peeling the stuck dough off the liner, however, was quite a pain.

I baked the loaves in my dutch ovens for 30 minutes top on, 35 minutes top off. A little too much for loaves that size. I thought that having two of them would make a difference, but I was wrong. Lesson learned. Additionally, I have decided to ditch my dutch ovens for the next bake, I don’t know exactly what I’ll do, but the high sides really suck - if I don’t use parchment paper, it’s nearly impossible to get a loaf inside well or safely.

No small part of me thinks that after twenty two loaves I should be more precise than I am currently, but maybe I’m just a slow loris. All good, I’m making bread, and ultimately, learning.

Dough
500 g bread flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
200 g whole wheat flour (Central Milling Brand Organic)
560 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:
I was precise with my initial timing, I felt more comfortable turning and folding the loaves.
What I did wrong:
I over baked them. I overcorrected and made them too small.
What I learned:
Wait until the levain is ready to add it to the auto-lyse to begin the bulk ferment. Use the temperature thermometer. Use the heat mat if I need to speed up the development of the levain.