Baking Day!

Signature Boule – Cooling

When I was in France I participated in a wine tour of Champagne and Bordeaux. One of the participants is putting together a reunion dinner for Friday night, and after talking about bread all through the trip I decided I had better take some of my signature bread! This is my “go to” bread. While it has evolved, it is descended from the loaves I made almost every week for two years when I first began baking sourdough. Here is how I made these loaves! I am describing my normal process in detail for those who are new to bread. For those of you who are experienced, you can kibitz my process!

The first hurdle is making sure my starter is lively. While I had fed my starter twice in the week after returning from the trip I elected to feed it again yesterday to boost its activity a bit more. Last night I did my normal first expansion: 100 grams of 100% hydration starter (equal weights of flour and water), 200 grams of water, 100 grams of organic whole wheat, and 100 grams of King Arthur All Purpose flour. That was mixed about 7:30 pm. This morning it was just a bit past peak – the depressed top of the levain and the bubble pattern clearly indicated it had peaked and was declining. But it was still close to peak so totally ready to go!

Ragged Dough. Mixed until all dry flour is incorporated.

I want the crust on these loaves to be really pretty so I decided to go with 70% hydration. While higher hydration would yield a more open crumb I opted to be well in my comfort zone to minimize sticking issues and potential final loaf problems. So, this morning I took 780 grams of water, 1220 of KA AP flour, 31 grams of salt, and my levain and hand mixed the dough until all the loose flour was incorporated. Then into a small, covered tub (approximately 10 by 13 inches) for bulk fermentation, simply dumping the dough into the tub and spreading it a bit to fill the bottom so it was somewhat uniform in depth.

Before the first S&F. Similar – but a bit softer looking! The flour is now hydrated.

After 30 minutes the dough was already showing a bit of  life and expansion. I wet my hands and began with one set of four stretch and folds (S&Fs).  To do an S&F I rotate the tub so the long axis is away from me. Grab the far two corners and lift the dough and pull the corners toward me and place them down on the near corners (sort of like folding a sheet of paper in half by folding the far corners toward you. Rotate the tub 90 degrees and repeat until four folds have been made – one from each side.

After six S&Fs. The dough has “substance” and some strength.

For the first S&F the dough was exceedingly slack. Lifting the dough only affected the far half of the dough. The second fold was similar. By the third fold the dough was beginning to gain body and lift more. By the fourth fold the dough was showing a great deal more strength and substance. I often stop at four S&Fs but the slackness of the initial dough led me to do two more. At that point the dough was was much more developed as shown in the photograph. I then lifted the dough mass and plopped it back in the tub with the last folds up – the smooth, stretched side down and spread the dough some to better fill

Smoothed, stretched, and flipped after the first set of S&Fs.

the tub. Then flip the dough over so the smooth side is up and the final fold ends are down so that the weight of the dough will seal the folds and make a cohesive and continuous mass.

After another half hour it  was time for the second set of S&Fs. The dough had relaxed quite a bit so the first fold was pretty slack but the second was tighter. I almost stopped at three but went ahead and did four. Will probably cut back on my final set of S&Fs.

At the hour and a half point the dough is now definitely beginning to grow but is a bit slower than I would like. Time for the final S&Fs. The question is, “How many to do?” S&Fs are very powerful for developing dough and arranging gluten. And the more I handle the bread later in the process the less random and open the crumb is likely to be. So, given I did a couple of extra S&Fs early, I decided to cut back and only do two S&Fs – a half set. Since the dough is a bit more sluggish than I would like I moved it to a slightly warmer spot. Probably about 45 minutes to an hour to loaf formation.

Roughly formed loaves ready to rest before final loaf formation.

At 45 minutes I sprinkled the top with flour and dumped the dough onto my proofing board (a 24 by 36 inch or so piece of plywood). Divided the dough into three equal and one slightly larger loaves and preformed into loaves and let rest for 20 minutes. Then formed final loaves and placed in bannetons sprinkled with flour. Alas, the dough is a bit slacker and stickier than I would like. Had to use a bit of extra flour to control the dough.

Loaves loaded into bannetons for proofing.

About two hours later the proof was making progress so I put two cloches in the oven at 500 degrees F. An hour later the proof was getting right so I loaded two of the loaves into the cloches, slashed them, lowered the temp to 455, and put them in the oven. Also turned my gas oven on to 450 to heat so I can keep the lids hot when they come off the cloches. My goal in timing is to have the first two loaves be a tad underproofed and the final loaves spot on to a bit over. I give the loaves 20 minutes in the cloche at 455 and then pull the lids, putting them in the gas oven to keep them warm.

Finished loaf from first batch, cooling.

The first loaves were right where I wanted them. Though the loaves sagged badly into a puddle when slashed, they showed great oven spring and  a good bit of the exuberant “rip” of underproofed. Now to bake for another 27 minutes, checking after about 23 to insure they aren’t getting too dark (which they will not!).

The loaf to the right is from the first batch. It has the characteristics I like. It is baked hard – to about 209 degrees F internal temperature. The crust is dark and the loaf shows three or four distinct shades of brown. The darkest is the edge of the ears where it was slashed and is almost burned. The bulk of the loaf is a slightly dark brown. The slash opened well and is a medium brown and with a lighter tone where the final rip of the bake occurred. This loaf is, by my values just a hair underproofed – not enough for the loaf to rip beyond the slashes but with huge oven spring and expansion. The loaf at the top of this post was baked 45 minutes later and shows just a little bit less rip. it is arguably still on the slightly under-proofed side but that is the look I want. Still, I could have proofed the loaves another 45 minute or an hour and the second loaves would have still been fine – and proofed more like most commercial loaves.