first time post - todays bake

    As with a lot of others I have been hanging around this site learning as I go. I first discovered atisan bread about 10 yrs. ago, but as we live in nothern Minn. we are about 300 mi. from the nearest bakery. A little over a year ago my wife received her latest copy of 'Martha Stewart Living' with an article about artisan bread baking, we talked about wanting to try it but were a little intimidated. My wife does a lot of cooking and baking and is involved in a christian mentoring program for women that includes cooking and baking lessons. She occasionaly makes quick rise whole wheat with her Bosch bread machine. Too yeasty for my taste.

    Two months ago we decided to jump in. On weekends. We started with Martha's french bread and baguettes a couple times, found Jeff Hamelman's 'Rustic bread' online. We the bought his book 'Bread', Reinharts BBA, found this great site and have been trying French and Rustic to try and get a handle on all this. (Love this site I have read everything.) Everything has turned out quite edible and delicious - no big failures yet.

   We started weighing instead of measuring 2-3 times ago. It makes things simpler but the doughs are now wetter and harder to work with. From the beginning we have substituted 'Robin Hood - best for bread multigrain' -  it has flours, cracked wheat, cracked rye and flaxseed - instead of whole wheat and rye. It has been our favorite and makes great toast. Today I did an 18hr. preferment, I added some Irish oats - not rolled, just cut - and cornmeal as a soaker upped the salt and yeast just a little and adjusted the water. His recipe calls for 69% hydration. This batch was really wet, last week we added more flour but this week I thought I would just go with it and see how it turned out. Looks good, tastes good but not as crunchy a crust as previously. Maybe I'll back off on the salt. Crumb looks good. It seems the wetter dough doen't give as high a rise either. My Therma-pen instant read thermometer had a dead battery today so I did the thump test but I'm sure I hit 200 degrees.Should I back off on the water to get a firmer dough and would that help the crust. I use steam. I also use the bigger heavier stone I see people talking about. We have a 36"oven so I can do 2 loaves at a time.

  Also it seems to me that Martha's recipe for French dough with AP flour and poolish is tastier but not as pretty - golden brown - as Hamelman's 'Baguettes with pate fermentee'.

Thanks for all I've learned here. I'll try to attach photos. My username bakerking is my last name and an aspiration - I haven't arrived yet but am enjoying the journey.