Hamelman's Poolish Baguettes
This is potentially a retarded question, but I appreciate any insight you may have :)
I just made Hamelman's Poolish Baguettes for the first time, as other threads had seemed to have positive bakes from his formula. I'd been playing with David's 5hr baguettes (from his baguette surprise and challenge thread) for the past few weeks, and thought I'd try a formula with a preferment instead of adding starter discard to David's formula. The 5hr baguettes have a 70% hydration, and Hamelman's have 66%, so theoretically, the Hamelman baguettes should have a somewhat stiffer dough, right?
Not the case for me, apparently. David's dough (for me...) turns out to be stiffer than I thought it would be. It felt really nice to fold in the bowl, and shape - not stiff at all, but not super slack. Significantly stiffer than a ciabatta dough, but not so much that it just sits in a lump if you don't handle it, if that makes any sense.
Hamelman's dough today was very slack in comparison. It was a little stiffer than Mark's ciabatta dough in his video (Back Home Bakery) but not by a whole lot! And it stuck to everything - floured hands, wet hands, floured bench scraper, wet bench scraper... :) When it was resting on the bench after preshaping, it pretty much puddled when the gluten relaxed, even though I had preshaped a little tighter than normal. Is this because the poolish is supposed to add extensibility, which seems to translate to me as strength in stretchability? But also seems to "feel" looser and lighter? Or did I just do something horribly wrong? :)
They came out nicely, with decent spring, but the crust was definitely chewy, and not crisp like David's bags were for me. Crumb is also not very open, which is kind of surprising to me, since it felt so much wetter than the previous doughs. Considering I accidentally dropped (like a moron) the first baguette when I was loading and had to physically pick it up and reposition it (nice finger indentations!) and then it sprang back just fine in the oven, I thought it would be more open than it was. Just a few medium-large holes here and there, but not a ton.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated
Sephie