Batard bunnies

Baked two loaves using King Arthur’s Big Book of Bread pain au levain recipe.

Preferment:
148g all purpose flour
28g sourdough culture (100% hydrated, fed using bread flour)
76g water at around 60-65 degrees

Mixed to a shaggy dough, kneaded on counter for about 10 minutes until I could form a smooth, tacky ball and then put it in my dough bucket, covered it with a shower cap, and let it sit on the counter for about 14 hours.

Dough:

630g all purpose flour
50g whole wheat flour
16g salt
539g warm water (I mixed in water on the higher end of warm because my dough tends to end up getting pretty cold and fermenting slowly)

Busted up the starter into small pieces, poured in the water, stirred it vigorously with a dough whisk, and then added the flour.

Mixed with dough whisk until it was shaggy and then hand mixed until it was a little more uniform (about 4-5 minutes).

Left on counter for 15 minutes then did a set of stretch and folds. 60 minutes later I did another set, and 60 minutes after that I did one more. May have done a coil fold instead of the stretch and folds at some point but I can’t remember for sure.

After about 5-6 hours bulk, lightly floured the counter, dumped it out, divided into two loaves, and pre shaped into rounds. Covered and let sit for 20 minutes before shaping into small batards. Dusted the dough with a little rice flour and popped them into hairnet lined sliced deli meat containers because I don’t have real rectangular bannetons. Covered both with shower caps and put in the fridge (seemed to fluctuate between 37-42 degrees).

Left in the fridge for about 36-40 hours. Preheated a Dutch oven in the oven to 475 (ish) for an hour. Pulled out the dough, scored it poorly (second loaf in pictures), put two ice cubes in the pot, lowered the loaf in with wet parchment paper, sprayed the loaf, covered the pot, and put it in the oven.

Baking:

6 minutes and then expansion score

Lid off after 14 more minutes

Another 25 minutes after that.

Let counter cool for an hour.

Did the same for the second loaf (first pictured) about 3 hours later but had a little better luck scoring.