For those who asked about my techniques - pix and commentary

Hey all! Some folks were asking me about my shaping and baking techniques, so here they are.

We're making 2 recipes. Sourdough Rye from Bread Alone, and Basic Sourdough Bread from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. The rye is made from my 100% rye starter named Clyde, the other from a white starter named Gertie, which was seeded with a bit of Clyde's leftover.

I've already made the rye dough, and it's gone through its first ferment. My hand is in the picture for scale.

This makes a HUGE dough ball. The recipe says to divide it in half, but I cut it in 3. I use Reinhart's method for shaping: pat into a rough rectangle, then fold in thirds like a letter, sealing the end against the dough each time.

Next I put them on a well-floured couche, seam side up. I pull up the cloth between them to make little walls. You can see that my couche is too short for 5 loaves, so I added on a tea towl. Make sure you flour it well. I didn't flour it well enough, and it stuck to the end loaf.

After they've proofed, here's how I get the loaf onto the peel. Lay the peel next to the loaf, and pull up on the couche to gently roll the loaf on.

Here's the 3 rye loaves on my Superpeel, slashed and waiting to be baked. I tried using a serrated tomato knife to do the slashing today. Worked fabulously on the rye loaves, terribly on the white ones.

Onto my Fibrament stone, and voila! Here they are all done. I was concerned about not getting enough of a rise out of the white loaves, but you can see by their height that I got a massive oven spring out of them. You can also see the peaks on the second from the left loaf where the tea towel had stuck to it. Ah, well.

I'll open them up tomorrow so you can see the insides.

-Joe