Weekly Loaf

Grams & Percentages

• 500 g flour (275 g bread, 175 g WW, 50 g spelt)
• 400 g water (80% hydration)
• 100 g levain (20% inoculation)
• 10 g salt (2%)

Timeline

• 7:30 am — fed starter
• 12:30 pm — start autolyse
• 2:00 pm — add levain (1:30h autolyse + 6:30h starter)
• 2:30 pm — add salt
• 3:00 pm — counter lamination
• 4:00 pm — coil fold #1
• 4:45 pm — coil fold #2
• 5:30 pm — coil fold #3
• 6:00 pm — shape loaf and place in banneton for 2h retard
• 7:00 pm — preheat oven 450°
• 8:00 pm — bake, lid on, 25m
• 9:00 pm — remove loaf from cast iron, turn oven off, leave loaf in spoon-cracked [off] oven to dry out for 30m

Notes

• The goal for this week’s loaf was a very open crumb, which I’m overall happy with. I would like to see more evenness, but I’m happy that all the airiness isn’t on the top/side of the loaf.
• 80% hydration makes an incredibly manageable and reliable dough. It’s a perfect hydration to begin learning to bake by feel, letting the dough be your guide.
• Very happy with the little ear action. Increasing the steam time (from 15m to 25m) aided this.
• The loaf itself was tender, with a nice chew and relatively blonde crust (easily could have done another 10-20 in the oven).
• Flavor was pretty profound, considering the retard was so much shorter than I typically do.
• Thank you to Dan Larn for the scoring tutelage.  And thank you to Kristen for the lamination technique.