The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

3-Stage Pain au Levain Miche

blackhatbaker's picture
blackhatbaker

3-Stage Pain au Levain Miche

Hello, everyone. I thought it was time that I should try out a new bread making process, as I've been baking a lot of tartine bread and have made enough small changes that I feel comfortable with the formula. So, I decided to scale down the formula for traditional 3 stage pain au levain from The Bread Builders to make a little over 4kg of dough. I did make a couple of very small changes, for convenience's sake: I let the levain seconde ferment for 10hrs instead of 8 (but mixed it with cooler water) so I could get a better night of sleep, and I increased the hydration to 68% and utilized a 1hr autolyse so I could knead it in the bowl instead of having to transfer it to the counter to knead for a long time. I also used 25% whole wheat flour to try to simulate medium-extraction flour, but I think I'll use 50% next time for "high-extraction".

As you can see, they are scored like pain poilane

Crumb shot

Another thing I baked but didn't take pictures of (oops!) was a sourdough pizza crust that I used for fennel pizza and mushroom pizza. It followed a similar procedure from my last pizza post, but used 200g of 100% hydration starter, 400g of flour, 10g of salt, and 5g yeast. I also refrigerated the preshaped dough for 24 hours, as suggested by David Esq.

 

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

So how does this big boy look on the inside?

blackhatbaker's picture
blackhatbaker

I'll upload a crumb shot.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Poilâne

Picture from DL's website

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Looks like you achieved a great crumb and crust.  Nice bake.