Tartine Rye and Whole Wheat

Decided to bake a loaf of bread for a colleague, and decided I ought to make two different versions, just in case one didn't turn out properly.

I made the whole wheat country loaf, without any modifications except that I reserved 50 grams of water to mix with the salt (he says to do that for the basic country loaf, but makes no mention of it in the whole wheat version), and, rather than mix the flour, water, and starter all at once, I opted to hydrate the flour and water overnight, while my levain was building.  The next morning I added the salt to the reserved water, let it sit for few minutes and then poured the mixture into the hydrated flours and added the levain.

For the rye bread, I did exactly the same thing, except that I used added whole wheat.  I have to check my notes to determine how much, and will update this post when I do so.

So, with four loaves of bread proofing, I decided to bake 2 same day, and 2 after overnight stay in the fridge. I baked one of each variety on each day.  I baked the rye in an 8" banneton and the whole wheat in a 9" banneton.  I also lined the rye baneton with a cotton towel because I was worried about sticking dough.

So, the same day bake (which was really a 2 day bake because I made the leaven the night before) had a long proof in the fridge - don't recall how long, but probably close to 10-11 hours.  It bloomed very nicely.  I can't be sure that the scoring was not the key here, but the next day's dough did not look as pretty to my eye. 

I gave away the same-day rye, froze one of the whole wheat, and am currently eating the second day rye for lunch.  It is very good.

The loaves with the oats on top are whole wheat. The ones without, rye. The photo up top is the Day 1 and Photo below is Day 2.

Here is the Rye Day 2 Crumb

The rye dough was a huge challenge.  A stick mess that I avoided by handled by using a lot of flour and by shaping with the bench knife.