Today's Bake - A Success, But A Question Or Two

Those of you who read and remember my intro post will know my first try at a bread made with a poolish was a failure. So not being one to give up easily, I tried another. I chose a recipe I found that had been adapted from Ken Forkish's book "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast". 

The poolish, which I started 6:15 last night, was 250 gms each of flour (I used Robin Hood AP) and water, with less than 1/2 gm of instant yeast. I left that 'till 7:00 this morning at room temperature, which brought from just a shade under 2 cups last night to ~ 5-3/4 this morning. Then I mixed it with the rest of the ingredients; 250 gms more flour, 125 gms of water (@ 105 deg F), 1/2 tsp of instant yeast and 10 gms of fine sea salt. 

I left this for 3-1/2 hours, stretching and folding 3 times in the first hour, then found a somewhat acceptable replacement for a banneton in the cabinets and dropped the dough in to proof, after lining the bowl with a cotton tea towel on which I had rubbed white rice flour.

After an hour, I baked it in the bake pot (that's what we call a Dutch oven) @ 475 covered for the first 30, then uncovered for 15, after which I removed it from the pot and laid on a stone for 12 until it was the colour I wanted, ~ 12 mins for 57 mins total.

To say I'm pleased and proud is an understatement. The crackling of the crust when first out of the oven is music to my ears, and the texture of the bread and crust is quite pleasing. More than that, the flavours are unbelievable, considering it's a 4 ingredient bread.

So, here's a kind of a picture diary, with a couple of questions mixed in. Comments and criticism are all welcome.

The poolish after 12-1/2 hours

In it's blanket and bed, to proof for an hour. Now, here I had some trouble. I found the dough extremely wet and hard to work with. Even with a fairly well floured board, it stuck like glue. I think next time I'll reduce the water to something like 70-72%. Suggestions here are welcome.

After 30 minutes covered, I put it back in uncovered after this picture. I used a new DE razor blade on a coffee stirrer stick, but it tore at the dough more so than cut it. I think I'll stick with one of my sharp paring knives, the ones Wifey won't use. Seems to do a better job. Or maybe it was because the dough was just too wet. I dunno.

The final product. Not as dark as some of the breads baked by the good folks here but I was starting to get a burning smell so out it came. I'm thinking now it was the rice flour on the stone, but I don't know for sure.

It took every bit of willpower I had to wait an hour to cut it, but I made it that long.

Any comments on the crumb? It has a nice mixture of different size holes and openings but none out of whack, to my eye anyway.