069 - Country Loaf

long autolysis. weird. caught a glimpse of this when I was flipping through the third Tartine book and again on the Tartine Bread Experiment, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Good result, will definitely repeat.Poor shaping as usual, though. need to improve. 

MIX // 350W 150WM 375WA // AUTOLYSE // (0215) // 10:45

tried a long autolyse without yeast or salt for the first time. gluten development, pliability, overall feel of the dough after half a day felt pretty good. made a young leaven with 25g starter, 100g water, and 100g flour at the same time I mixed the dough. I used cold water both for the base dough and to create the leaven. I used Community Grains Hard Red Winter Wheat as my wholemeal, and Central Milling's Organic Bread Flour as my strong white flour.

MIX // 7SA 225LE // (1300)

didn't add any water this time, and it took a while to get the leaven fully incorporated into the dough. at this point the dough felt as workable as a a dough that's 2-3 hours into bulk fermentation already, but more dense.

BULK FERMENTATION // STRETCH & FOLD // (1330, 1400, 1430)

after the first and second stretch and folds, the dough retained its water content well, even though it didn't show too much expansion every half hour, which I think has to do with the lower-than-normal ambient temp. it felt good to go, and I didn't want to risk exhausting it and getting droopy doughs like my last few, so I kept the bulk fermentation short at 2 hours with three stretch/folds during that time. 

SHAPING, BENCH REST // (1500)

shaped the dough into a boule and let it sit, it didn't show much drooping and kept its form pretty well. dough was easy to work with, not terribly sticky like my previous doughs, and took well to shaping. here's what it looked like before I did the final shaping (after 15 minutes)

SHAPING, PROOF // (1515 - 0100) // 9:45

roughly shaped the dough into a loose batard and left in a loaf tin for its final fermentation in the fridge which lasted about 10 hours. 

BAKING // (1000 - 1115)

Heated up the oven for half an hour at 550°F with a shallow pan on the bottom rack. The dough had definitely expanded but was wider than it was taller, indicating a poor shaping job - definitely one of my weaker areas. Covered the dough with some flour, slashed it a few times and put it in the oven immediately after tossing some boiling water in the shallow pan to create some steam.

there was decent oven spring, but the crust broke and the slashes didn't expand. I probably should slash more aggressively and work on my shaping technique. 

TASTE, TEXTURE NOTES

the crumb was super airy with good spring and moisture retention. the crust was crunchy without being too thick with the outside layer shattering quite easily. might add more to this later.