So this time around I achieved a much better oven spring and blooming from the center scoring. It's pretty cool to actually watch the process take place in the oven, now that I'm trying the stone. The crumb improved a bit more as well. It's not as tight as last time.
Still it's not quite what I'm looking for.
This time when I mixed the dough and starter together, I let it rest for just over 20 minutes so the dough would be fully hydrated. I found after that rest period it already had descent extensibility. It even had a descent window pane test. My guess would be that due to the 5-7 minute mixing process and the 20 minute rest period, it had developed a gluten structure already. Any comments on this??
Even when I took the dough out of the bowl to start kneading, it felt extensible. I continued to knead anyway until I achieved a really nice window pane test. But I felt because of the initial extensibility of the dough that I might of been handling it too much. I wish now that I would of just done some stretch and folds with rest periods, which may be one the reasons I didn't quite get the crumb I was looking for. The other reason was that I'm using 40% Red Fife at 70% hydration. I think upping to 75% hydration would help more with open crumb.
I also dropped my proofing time from 1.5 hrs, to 1 hour.
My scoring needs to be worked on. As you can see at both edges of the center score, it warped in a bit. I think it's because I scored too far down the side of the loaf.
And I've actually never taken the temperature of the bread while baking!! I understand that the internal temperature should reach between 180 to 205. Time to buy a digital thermometer!! If I really want to evoke the most flavor out the grains, I really need to hit those temps.
Oh, and a few weeks ago I bought The Bread Baker's Apprentice. So now I can actually sound like I know what I'm talking about! HAHA!!
