side splitting/ boule explosion

Larry, I knew the bottom line but not the short story. And knowing is not always a lead-in to doing... at least with me.

I'm not really sure about this, but what I think I did wrong initially was not add enough water to the dough. It was noticeably dryer than usual. (I have a Detecto balance scale. It's metric, goes to 500 gr at 5 gr. increments. There are times I simply misread or do not counter balance correctly for containers on the scale. This is often due to not doing the baker's version of the carpenter's rule of measure twice, cut once. I likely became distracted and didn't pay attention and did not add enough water somehow). I made two batches of bread that morning. One was a whole wheat and one white but both used the same levain and except for the flour switch, were essentially the same bread in all other respects. During the fermentation stage the w.w. rose like wildfire, even pushing up and over the top of the container I use, pushing off the lid. Whereas the white hardly budged in the same time. I had to punch down the w.w. and wrestle it back into its container. The white I had to encourage with nice words and promises. But it was active, I could see that.

Could an insufficient quantity of water cause thhis? A wild guess is that it was maybe only a 50% hydrated dough whereas it calls for something like a 68% or 70% (I don't have the recipe in front of me and I simply don't remember the % as I no longer use % as a measure, because I bake the same size batch each time and just weigh out what I already know I need. Unless I don't by mistake.)

I was doing two bakes and I did the w.w. first as it was apparently ready to go. I just should have waited much, much longer for the white and I didn't. It didn't sem too far off, but I could see it wasn't s proofed as I knew it could and should be. I don't have a good enough excuse that will serve to make me look like an inocent victim of circumstance. I saw the signs but ignored them.

Thanks for the help. I knew I have to pay better attention and not allow distractions (was I just dancing to the tunes on the iPod? Makes sense to me.). But I like knowing what's happening even when I'm doing things right, let alone when I'm not. I should understand the importance of patience. I'm a skydiving instructor and I learned long ago that if one is not patient in skydiving there are two choices: Learn to become patient or try something else. There's no rushing nature. Same for baking. And I know that. I also fantasize that it won't snow all winter here in the Northeast. Yeah, dream on...

Thanks

Kim