My version of Ken's Country Brown batard

In this edition of what the heck can I do with a tub of dough (hmm, redundant,no?), I decided to tackle Ken’s other batard, which he calls Ken’s Artisan Country Brown.  Just for clarity’s sake, something I neglected to do in my write up about the Country Blonde breads last week, these are also not based on anything printed in the FWSY book.

Usually it takes at least one, if not a few iterations to tinker with and get it “right”, but this time it seems as if I got it “right” on the first try.  Either I’m getting a little lucky or getting a little better, I’ll take it either way!

A 1500g mix yielded two ~500g batards and two ~250g baguettes, too much for my oven peel to handle in one bake, so it was split up in two, with an oven recovery time of about 20 minutes between the baguettes coming out and the batards going in.

When I made my big batch last time, also 1500g of the Country Blonde dough, the one batard weighed in at just over 750g, and while that may be fine for a commercial enterprise, for just little old me and my home oven, I thought that it was too big, hence the two 500g batards this time.

As is my too often cry, I wish that I had left the baguettes in for another half shade of color, but I think that I hit the nail on the head with the batards.  As is also my too often cry, I don’t yet have the heart to saw off a hunk of the batard and inspect its innards.
   
As with the prior Blonde batch, a 12 hour couched retard of the already shaped dough, and then directly into the oven for a bake.  For these smaller baguettes, 9 minutes of steam and baked for 20-22 minutes total.  All the while the still refrigerated batards remained comfortably swathed in their couche until it was their turn to bake.  Which naturally took longer, somewhere in the 26-29 minute range at 470dF.

Once more, here is a picture of Ken's Country Brown batards, from his FWSY book

 The batards:

The blisters:

The grigne:

The baguettes: