Ingredients

Hi Tinmanfrisbie (that's quite a handle!)

He says in the book that he doesn't see much of a difference between Gold medal Better for Bread Flour and King Arthur.  Do you agree?  

I've used both the GM and KAF flours and my family and I can taste a difference; we prefer KAF over the GM.  I do use the GM flour to refresh my sourdough culture because it's less expensive.  I think it's a matter of taste and encourage you to try both.

Reinhart and most other bakers/authors prefer to use instant yeast because it can be added directly to the dry ingredients.  The Rapid Rise yeast  you purchased is instant yeast and will do just fine.

BTW, in the TFL FAQ section, there is a yeast FAQ that you might find interesting.  One on flour, too.

The oil spray is used to prevent the dough from sticking to the plastic wrap during the bulk fermentation and stretch and folds.  If you don't want to spray the dough, spray the plastic wrap or bag.   Canola or olive oil will do the job.

Hopefully you have a supply of parchment paper and can do the final proof of the dough while it sits on the parchment.  That will make it much easier to get it into the oven.

Did you mix the poolish or biga version?  Whichever, am sure it will be delicious.

It's probably not quite what he meant... but I just use Canola oil in one of those oil mister bottles that you pump up. It's cheaper and easier (and "greener"), and it seems to work fine.

(There are several tricks to using the oil misters though, not all of which are well-documented in the literature that comes with the mister:

• when you're all done for a while, release the pressure by unscrewing the cap until "whoosh" (then screwing it back on so you can't spill the oil) - this gives the mister a much much longer life, which more than offsets the minor nuisance of pumping it up again every time
• fill the mister only half full of oil - it's the squeezed air that makes it work, and if you fill it to the brim with oil so there's hardly any room for air, it will just dribble (or maybe even break the pump mechanism)
• unless your mister specifically mentions having a filter mechanism, stick to plain oil without any "infusion" of things like pepper
• when (not "if") it sorta clogs so it just emits a stream rather than a mist, empty the oil into a temporary container, fill the mister a little over half way with hot tap water, add a few drops of dish detergent, spray away in your sink until it starts misting again, replace the soapy water with plain water (no soap), mist some more to get all the soap out of the insides, pour out the water, and finally put the oil back in)