Feeling HOL-E (almost)..

Well, the battle continues as I wage my own personal HOL-E war..

Life has been hectic and I've not been baking as much as I'd like, but I was able to get a bake in this weekend.  Too many things going on so I ended up using my starter a bit past peak (started to fall). Which is amazing considering I fed it 12 hours earlier with just over 1:4:4 and kept it in a mid 70 degree warm cupboard spot above a heating vent for the night..

150g of 100% hydration starter using AP flour

300g water

425 flour (250g bread; 150g whole wheat; 25g buckwheat)

A short autolyse, the regular routine of stretch and folds and a very long bulk. I started around 10am, finished my stretch and folds by noon and at 3pm had to head out so I put it in the fridge (it looked like it had almost doubled at that point) and when I returned around 6pm did a quick shape and retarded overnight. I was trying to push my bulk further than normal. It didn't expand too much more over night - maybe 10/15% more.  it was just a bit more dough than my combo cooker could handle but I stuffed it in there and put the lid on.  I think I'll reduce the dough volume by about 20% to give the dough more space next time.

Overall little to complain about - crumb was good and I'm increasingly getting better at creating a more open crumb per Trevor's open crumb mastery method.. but I'm far from anything resembling mastery! This clearly is moving in the right direction and is the most open crumb I've made using Trevor's method. The longer bulk fermentation made a difference in helping opening up the crumb. The starter could have been used a bit sooner. Getting there..

I'm not sure I'm a buckwheat fan, but I had some flour and used it. I think I'll use that flour for crepes going forward. The battle continues..