Country Champlain or Tartine style country loaf - 2nd try

Well, not sure where my head was yesterday, it was perhaps a comedy of errors but I didn't think that as I put the dough in the fridge to proof overnight.  Start at the beginning. Three different bakes, 1 small loaf each. 

Monday 13:30 refresh 60% ish starter 10 g = 20 water + 30 flour

21:30 pm mix three levains and leave overnight on bench.  it was cool overnight - only 18 deg C when I got up next morning/

Tuesday 7 am - put levains in a cooler part of the pantry as I would not need till after lunch.

11:45 am Country Champlain.  Mix together

Bread flour 169 g + 6 g gluten

Fresh milled spelt 67 g

Fresh milled rye 34 g

Water 215 g 

13:45 pm Add 6 g salt and 52 g 100% hydration levain. Stretch and fold until incorporated then approx 10 minutes mixing the Rubaud style

Rest 10 minutes then repeat for another 5 minutes (using left arm this time!) It is now 14:15 pm and left dough to rest.

14:45 pm Stretch and folds * 20

15:15 pm Stretch and folds * 15

15:55 pm Stretch and fold * 9 then 2 more stretch and folds * 5. 

19:00 preshaped dough - it was sticky but  using bench knife managed it, just!

The dough was spreading like crazy and not holding its shape so after 10 minutes, I oiled the bench knife and managed to shape this very poofy dough into a boule - no way could I have done a batard!. Retard overnight 

Baked this morning 250 deg C for 15 minutes lid on, 230 deg C for 15 lid off.

Here it is before scoring and baking. 

Oh dear, another pancake!  But it is light!  This ended up being about 80% hydration, I forgot to account for the water in the 100% levain so it was obviously much wetter/softer than planned.  This is the lead photo

So on to loaf no 2.  Yeast water & sourdough loaf

Monday night I had mixed a poolish (hope that is correct terminology) of 65 g yeast water and 65 g flour.

Tuesday 12:15 pm mixed flours together for autolyse and when I wanted to add water, realised I had added yeast water to it so this would change the plan.  So I threw it out and measured water again, added to the flour and of course it was not sufficient. :( Back to drawing board.  Re calculated recipe based on what I had and so I added extra flour and water at 12:45 pm and could now get a reasonable dough for autolyse

Bread flour + gluten 396 g

Water 194 g

13:35 pm Add levain 35 g (I had forgotten to mix this and luckily had kept left over from evening before so it was 60% hydration)

Yeast water 57 g 

Salt 8 g

Mixed until incorporated.  then left to rest. At 14:00 decided it didn't look mixed enough so I did about 1 minute or so of Rubaud method.

14:30 Stretch & fold * 20

15:00 Stretch & fold * 15

15:30 Stretch and fold * 10 and at 15:55 stretch and fold * 8.  The final stretch and folds *5 were at 17:00 pm

18:00 pm preshaped.  Dough very poofy 

18:20 pm Very soft, hard to shape.  Did just manage to get a not very tight batard.  Into fridge to proof overnight.

This morning when others were baking I popped it into the freezer to firm it up.  Made it hard to get out of the banneton.  Baked 250 deg C lid on for 15 minutes, lid off at 230 deg C for 15 minutes.

This dough ended up being about 80% hydration - I miscalculated when recalculating the formula. No wonder it was hard to shape!!

A bit flat, but it too is light.  Better than I thought it would be.

Finally bake no. 3, a simple 1:2:3 loaf

 12:30 pm yesterday Mix flours and water for autolyse

bread flour 190 g incl extra gluten

Spelt flour freshly milled 67 g

Rye flour freshly milled 33 g

Water 250 g

14:25 pm add 97 g 100% hydration levain and 6.6 g salt.

Stretch and folds to incorporate.

14:25 pm stretch and fold * 20

15:00 pm Stretch and fold * 17

15:30 Stretch and fold * 10

15:55 pm Stretch and fold * 7 leave then 5 stretch and folds at 17:00 pm and 18:00 pm

18:30 pm preshape. - very sticky, hard to shape, 

18:45 pm  final shape.  Could not hold shape of batard so made a boule. Retard overnight.

Baked this morning at 250 deg C for 15 mins lid on, 15 minutes lid off at 230 deg.  When I removed lid, I removed parchment and this was a bit early so the scores closed up again  and it became a bit of a funny shape because I interfered with the loaf. :(

Well after all that, I was a bit down - really disappointed with my bake.  Apart from the YW mix up the mixing and stretch and folds had gone well.  It went pear shaped at shaping.  We couldn't resist by lunchtime so we cut the loaves .  Crumb shots

Top 2 slices - Country Champlain bottom 2 slices 1:2:3 loaf

Ok very pleasantly surprised by Country Champlain. Nice open crumb.  If it had held its shape, I would have been happier.  1:2:3 - crumb is good, but it feels a lot heavier and it is obviously not as open.

Yeast water / sourdough loaf

Now I am pretty happy with this crumb, would have been better if it hadn't spread so much but it was pretty high hydration for me.  I couldn't resist this last shot

At first I couldn't figure it out, why so all were so hard to shape.  I rechecked calculations today and some of the reason is the high hydration.  Too high for NZ flours.  Lesson learned! 

Also going to repeat the 1:2:3 loaf in a week, then 2 weeks using the same batch of milled flour and see if that makes a difference. i.e fresh vs aged flour

Tomorrow I am going to try Country Champlain again - just a small loaf  - two ways.

1. As I did this bake but with much lower hydration.  I have double checked my figures so will try at 74% hydration

2. I have milled the spelt and rye and sifted it.  I will build the levain tonight using the bran and then in the morning some of the sifted flour for the levain and see if this helps too.  This will also be at 74% hydration.

This is such a challenge, so many variables but hopefully I can figure it out.