First try at Hamelman Vermont Sourdough

Hi Everyone, 

So this is my first post.  I live in Austin, Texas.  I've been reading thefreshloaf.com for some years, learning a lot.  What a wonderful community here!  Thanks to all of you who contribute and now I guess I'm gonna try to do the same.  About a baker's dozen years ago I actually worked at a small bakery in San Antonio, baking the daily bread.  Simpler times, great memories...I didn't know how good I had it!  Thus, I've got some fundamentals down, but it's been a while.  I'm trying to regain my feel for the dough and timing.  As a hobby, I've been researching and reading a lot of the well-known authors (Reinhart, Forkish, Leader), trying the different techniques and supplying my little family of three's bread this past year.  Tasting good, looking hit and miss, and nutritious.  But the challenge is always trying to fit the bakes around my work schedule and weekend obligations.  

Anyway, I picked up Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread at half-price books about a month ago and have been loving it.  Really the best resource I've found.  I decided the first formula I'd try is the Vermont Sourdough after seeing people here mentioning it a lot.  I didn't do it 100% perfectly, I was in a hurry every step of the way...so I am happy enough with the result.  Looks to be a forgiving recipe and I can't wait to try it again. 

The first thing I had to do was convert my sourdough starter to be more of a liquid starter. So I did that, I don't know if it was really 125% or not, because I'm not sure what percentage I would call my starter which was kinda stiff but not very.  I basically added as much flour as water and it was much more liquid and rose well, then mixed the levain buildup per the recipe.  Here's what that it looked like, the morning before work.

I mixed it in my Kitchenaid classic 4.5qt spiral mixer early that evening after work, with only a 20 minute autolyse.  Then I almost forgot the salt, so I added that halfway into the mixing and that's not ideal. :)

I probably should've given it a stretch and fold as it started the bulk fermentation.  I gave it one stretch and fold after 1.5 hours, thinking that I would be giving it one more but the recipe only calls for 2-3 hour bulk fermentation so I just let it be.  This is what it looked like after about 3 hours.

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Wasn't looking too buoyant but it was maybe doubled.  I cut the dough in half and pre-shaped...I should've scaled the pieces because one turned out bigger.  As it was late, I floured two bannetons, shaped boules and put them in the refrigerator to retard for baking the next day.  I decided they could wait until the afternoon and I got home from work around 4 and preheated the oven after about 15 hour.  

Now I had trouble getting the bigger boule out of its banneton and kinda had to work it out with my fingers, which was frustrating and surely deflated it.  So that one turned out a little flatter.

Using a tip I learned about here at Fresh Loaf, I slid the boules on parchment paper onto a heated baking stone and covered them with big stainless steel bowls.  Love that trick!  

Baked them at 460ish for about 50 minutes...took the bowls off halfway thru...the bigger one had a little more time than the little boule.  

Like I say, first time doing this formula and I was clumsy in some technique, so I was surprised it turned out pretty well. Credit to Hamelman for such great instructions to follow for a great sourdough.  Tastes quite good, very mellow, chewy crust and nice overall.