Review: Seattle - The Pantry's Ancient Grains baking class

Wanted to post a review of a baking class my wife and I took part in last week at The Pantry here in Seattle. 

Some quick background: The Pantry's is an institution here, providing high quality cooking classes. In fact, it's featured in this month's Food & Wine magazine as one of the top cooking school's in the country. 

I had huge expectations walking in - tickets are sold out months in advance (I purchased mine back in November in order to secure a spot for the March class). 

The class was taught by Jen Altman. I didn't know much about her but basic internet search showed that she is a very accomplished pastry chef who is also a very well respected instructor. 

The class was 4 hrs long (a tough time given it was Wednesday and we were getting off of work) with an intro to shaping, scoring, mixing, autolyse and maintaining a levain. Jen highly recommended Tartine No 3 as a great reference for everyone though acknowledged there were some errors throughout the book to watch out for. 

We had worked on a variety of formulas: oatmeal porridge, spelt, kamut, and multigrain (there may have been others) and we were given a great set of pages on techniques and formulas. 

Jen explaining the importance of autolyse with a sample of ancient grains on the table

Overall, I was very happy with the course. Here are some specific thoughts:

- Pantry classes are very serious cooking classes. If you're looking for something more casual, highly recommend you check out The Hot Stove Society. You're here to learn and cook

- This is a great class for beginners, especially those who have never worked with levain breads before

- For the more advanced home bakers, I'm thinking this class is probably not for you as you probably walk in with a lot of knowledge

- Jen has a deep knowledge of breads and she was great at answering all of my questions. However, nothing beats making your own breads and learning. 

- There are a few things that I would probably disagree with what was taught. For example, she recommended a doubling of the dough for the bulk rise vs 20-30%. I'm not sure about that. The Tartine technique are different than Ken Forkish's book and I think there is a real risk of over proofing. Also, she recommended incorporating the porridge during the dough mixing rather than after the first two turns. However, Chad is very clear about this (check out the comment sections here where Chad himself answers questions  http://food52.com/recipes/25384-oat-porridge-bread)

Check out the breads we ended up with at the end of the class:

Too me, the loaves looked overproofed. There may be a variety of reasons for the lack of spring: the room was very warm and the loaves were put in 3hrs into the class; the oven didn't have steam injection and trying to bake almost a dozen loaves in an oven with boiling water isn't as effective; etc. However, my sense is that a big reason is that the doughs were overproofed. 

Welcome comments from the community, especially on the question of doubling vs 20-30% rise.