An Attempt of the Tartine Country Loaf
Over the weekend, I had the misfortune of being in a terrifying car accident. My car flipped and flew across three lanes of traffic on the interstate. Luckily, I was able to walk away unscathed for the most part, with the exception of two sprained wrists and a sore body from where I landed on the road. The severity of my pain prevented me from going back to work (a French-inspired bakery), so I am bound to resting at home all week -- which I find to be worse than flipping my car (sort of kidding). I am the type of person who needs constant stimulation and laying in bed as I binge watched Stranger Things was not working for me. So to pick up my spirits, I decided to bake bread anyways!
I had never attempted a high hydration before, so the ample amount of time I had felt perfect for this attempt. I adjusted the hydration and flours to suit my taste (I love dark rye!). I will say that when I was making this bread, I was highly subdued by the pain relievers. I will use that as an excuse for my forgetfulness and the imperfections of this bread (haha). I'm not very happy with these loaves, so I was hoping some of you could address some concerns of mine.
The flavor was okay, as I've made better tasting loaves at lower hydration. The crust was a beautiful amber color and had a lovely caramelized scent to it, which made me happy. However, the crumb was meh. I think I might have underproofed the loaves?
FDT: 76* degrees F | Kitchen temperature: 66-71* degrees F
Hydration: ~82% @ 80* degrees
Flour: Bread flour, whole wheat, dark rye (AP/Rye Starter)
Autolyse: 75 minutes
Bulk Fermentation: ~4.5 hours | 5 sets of stretch and folds
Divided the dough in 3: ~650g each
Cold-proof: 13-hours
How can I better the flavor of my loaf? Adjust the heat of my kitchen or my water to factor in the coldness of winter approaching? Any tips for checking doneness for cold-proofed dough?
I guess overall, how do I improve my flavor of these loaves and prevent those ghastly holes at the top of the crumb?
Wow! How fortunate you are to have nothing worse than sprains and soreness after a wreck like that.
The bread looks gorgeous, especially the wheat pattern you've scored on the crust. It appears that you got the loaves into the oven just before they succumbed to overproofing. The size of the bubbles indicates that some gluten breakdown had started, allowing smaller bubbles to merge into bigger bubbles. Their orientation indicates that there was vigorous oven-spring, as does the way the slashes bloomed, so you must have had the oven and stone preheated just right.
What were you looking for in the flavor and how does the bread not hit that mark? That's something that can't be gauged by looking at photos. With the blend of flours and the extended fermentation, as well as the lovely russet color of the crust, I would have anticipated that these would be very flavorful.
Paul
I'm grateful I'm alive and didn't break anything that prevented me from baking!
I think for flavor I missed the mark on obtaining the slight 'tang' of sourdough. The smell of the crumb was right, but I felt that the taste resembled one of a young levain that hasn't fully developed. I retried this recipe again last night but allowed a 4.5 hour bulk fermentation in a room at 78* degrees rather than my cold kitchen. The new batch has a more pronounced sourdough taste, so I think the warmer temperature improved the flavor!
I didn't realize that the holes at the top were indications of overproofing (I'm new at sourdough), so thank you for bringing that to my attention! With the new batch that I made, I shorten the proofing by an hour and it was perfect!
Those are gorgeous!
Sounds like a scary experience. Glad you were able to walk away from it mostly OK.
This is an excellent series, maybe a little too intense at times, but, pretty good.
It's almost impossible to make a good miche.
I find that the sweet spot in proofing for me is between 10-12 hours in the fridge and that is with about 13% prefermented flour.
As to the taste, I don’t care for a very sour loaf so I am not much help there. I do bulk ferment at ~82F for about 5 hours but I use a very young Levain (triples after 4 hours, sometimes sooner).