Glowup appreciation post – it’s been a journey!

First loaf July 25, last loaf today – all with very similar recipe (70-78% hydration), but 4 big factors leading to better crumb:

1) Reduced kitchen temps. My kitchen was at 78+ degrees until mid-October 🌵

2) Always using room temp water instead of warm water, especially if using aliquot method to judge completion of bulk ferment

3) Building more structure early on by adding in more kneading and a lamination step (per The Bread Code YouTube videos)

4) Completely ignoring everything Ken Forkish says about how to handle the dough, and dialing back the hydration. I was desperately trying to get the FWSY Country Blonde to work as written, and it just didn’t work for me. Today’s recipe tastes amazing, and has perfect (for me) texture.

For those who care, today’s loaf was the following, kitchen temp was 68-72F throughout the day

• 495g KA Bread Flour
• 20g KA Rye Flour
• 10g KA Whole Wheat Flour
• 370g room temp filtered water (70.5%)
• 100g ripe starter (fed 1:5:5; 19%)
• 13g salt (2.4%)

Method:
1) Autolyse for 30m
2) Add salt and starter and knead 8m (via FWSY “pincer” method, as well as repeated folds via Bread Code dough strengthening method)
3) Rest 15m
4) Bench knead 3m
5) Rest 15m
6) Lamination (optional aliquot)
7) Rest 30m
8) Coil fold hourly, at least 4-5x
9) Stop bulk ferment after 12.5h when dough is beautifully jiggly and soft
10) Shape
11) Room temp prove for 2h
12) Fridge prove overnight (8h at 36F – I never get any rise in my fridge at this temp, so I do both room temp and fridge)
13) Room temp prove 1h while oven preheats
14) Bake in Dutch oven or on pizza stone with steam at 475F for 30m covered, 18m uncovered.

Now I hope to start creeping up the hydration again. Let’s see if I can hit 80% 🙂