Champlain Sourdough... almost

Greetings All,

Like many here, I've been studying Trevor's e-book recently, and I have to say it is a fantastic jumping-off point.  His thoughtful analogies, like "a bag of balloons," make a lot of sense as you read, and help to solidify the complex concepts he covers.  The chapters on dough strength were particularly helpful for me in my own personal development.

I also watched the videos on breadwerx.com over and over as I read the book to give my brain something to shoot for in the development of muscle memory.  In particular, I noticed during the first handling of the dough after the overnight rest it was really easy to be too rough without even realizing it.  Also, in the pre-round, sliding the dough along the counter with the bench knife in one hand while gently rolling it into a round with the other hand is trickier than it looks.  These are on my mental checklist to work on in the next bake.  But as I mention above, between the book and the videos, I had a great place to start from.

 For this bake I pulled my liquid starter out of the fridge and started a 2-stage build in the morning on day one, then mixed up the pre-dough as Trevor instructs.  I called this "almost" Champlain Sourdough because I didn't have any Spelt.  Instead of 38g of Spelt I used 19g of WW, and 19g of Durum semolina.  Otherwise, I followed the formula and instructions to the letter.

I don't have a combo cooker, so baked on my stone covered with a cast aluminum roaster for 20 minutes, then uncovered for 20 more.  Best grigne I've gotten on a loaf in forever, and the crumb is exactly what I was hoping for.  My family and I like the crust at this color (we're not 'bold bake' fans) so 40 minutes was just right.

I'll definitely be playing around with this technique for a while because I'm really pleased with the results after only the first attempt.