I used the formula in "Bread", 3rd edition; you can find it here: Bread Formulas. It's still resting until tomorrow AM so I don't have a slice photo, but here's the whole thing: Today's Miche P-A-C
I don't have high-extraction flour nor do I have the cabinet/freezer space for it, so I used 80% KA Golden Whole Wheat + 20% KA High Gluten flour. I did the 3 rounds of stretch-and-folds per the book. After each set of folds, the dough wasn't stretching the way it was before folding, so I thought that was enough.
Hamelman says that the loaf isn't very tall, but I don't think it's supposed to look like this. In fact, I think I saw a nice one here not long ago. The dough looked fine in the proofing basket but spread on the peel.
I'm pretty sure of two things that I fouled up:
- Instead of the mixing some stiff starter, I used my regular 100% hydration rye starter. It worked fine with the levain, but maybe not with the whole loaf? It would have added only about 12g of water to the 820g of water in the formula (I made 1/10 of the metric quantity, with 25%/10g additional starter because of the small batch)
- I was late preheating the oven, so the dough may have overproofed
Would either or both of those have caused the flat loaf? Maybe I should have used a higher % of high gluten flour? Or more folding?
Thanks for suggestions.
Here's a recipe and picture I found that might be a good reference -
https://kneadingconference.com/james-macguiremiche/
TomP
Thanks. The formula is very nicely detailed. But, it's just 18% whole wheat with the rest AP. For taste and mainly health reasons I typically bake higher whole grain percentage bread. Maybe the simulation of high extraction flour that Hamelman suggests, 60 - 80% whole wheat + bread or high gluten flour for the remainder, isn't strong enough without expert handling.
Let’s see. The crumb, but over-proofing is a good guess. It could also be that your starter was too acidic and or you didn’t develop the gluten enough. I recently had the same issue with a flat looking Miche.
Miche crumb photos
I had a little difficulty with the bassinage (next time, stop the mixer while adding the bassinage water). I did 3 cycles of stretch-and-folds, but maybe I should have done more folds at each round. Or the hydration was too high.
After 12+ hrs, I finally sliced the bread: Miche Photos with Slices. The crumb looks nice, it's just flat. And it tastes pretty good, especially as base for lox or whitefish spread.