Stretch and folds
A word about gentle stretch and folds. From my experience , higher hydration doughs seem to benefit from more heavy handed stretch and folds. It seems if I'm too gentle with my 73% hydration dough, I end up with lax dough which is harder to shape and score and is sticky and doesn' t retain its shape . And has poorer oven spring. My gentle technique is to lift the dough out of the bowl with both hands and hold it underneath with my fingers and let gravity pull the dough down. let the dough fold onto itself, rotate then repeat 3-4x. My dough never seems to be extensible enough to get the same amount of stretch as the first time. I assume it's my type of flour? My rougher technique is to pull the dough out of the bowl with one hand , fold it over with quite a bit of force , turn the bowl and repeat 5-6 times. Can anyone weigh in with their experiences? Does what I'm saying make any sense?