It doesn't exist. Perfection is subjective. But yet, foolishly I bake and bake and bake to reach a level that is possibly unattainable. In the this limitless search of the divine bread loaf I am fulfilled. Similar to exercise or brewing or any craft at all, in bread-baking there is no ending goal, we bakers simply enjoy the process.
Got some dutch ovens to end the war between my loaves and our convection oven that has no off switch. No more worries about steam or drying out loaves with lackluster results.
Thanks to brdclc.com for the in-browser dough calculator.
I went below my normal percentage of levian because I didn't honestly know how long until I could bake these batards, well, one of them is a boule. Lowering the percentage allowed the ferment and proof to slow down and I only had to control temp to know where I was in the process.
I did a morning levian build with 20% inoculation as a feeding.
Mixed later in the afternoon after the 100% WW dough autolysed for two hours at 86F.
Bulk ferment in the oven at 85F for about 4 hours with a fold every 30 minutes.
Cold proofed in walk-in fridge, which is set to 38F but gets down to 34F. Internal dough temp is 41F for 17 hours.
Baked in dutch ovens at 400F for I think an hour. Truly I don't watch the latter phase of baking, only the first 40 minutes with steam/lid on the cooker, then the rest of the bake is just for color. FYI if you leave the cover on the DO for more than 30 minutes you get a nice red color on the crust. Just imagine why I do this practice, in a wood-oven you don't take off any lid at any part of the bake, the loaves just bake with steam the entire time. So that is why I don't vent at 20 or 30 min. Let that thing steam for 40 minutes and the rest of the bake is just for your color preference. There's probably science somewhere that says the maillard reaction builds up better with all that steam, I know not.
We don't know what the crumb is like! If I only bake a few loaves they go out the back door into the hands of friends/hired workers on the grounds. I need a minimum of 3 large batards for the brothers.
Perhaps this crumb from a bake just a few days prior will suffice. Identical recipe and process but less baking time. In our kitchen if someone needs the oven then that means you are on a strict timeline to get in and out of that oven. Such is life. The search for the perfect loaf continues...
