Great!
I just did the 10-fold gentle shaping (8 hour bulk fermentation total) - it’s in banneton…
Refrigerated now for the suggested 3-24 hours…
I will bake tomorrow…but will preheat the oven and the Dutch oven - cover…bake for 20 minutes to introduce steam…then uncover and bake an additional 30-40 minutes…
Hopefully I’ll show a picture too!
Thanks again Benny - your time is so appreciated!
I’m more than happy to help @raydee but remember I am far from an expert, I hope I’m giving you sound advice. I’m looking forward to your bake. You’re going to bake straight out of the fridge cold right? You’ll get better oven spring that way and it is much easier to score the dough.
Yes I sure will Benny! (right out of the frig)
And will score (I always go shallow…deeper you think?)
And a preheated oven (should I preheat Dutch oven too?? Do you??)
And you may appreciate this…my younger son who loves to cook (dry aging, sous vide, smoking, etc) reminded me that the people on the Oregon Trail most certainly didn’t make such a big deal out of baking their sourdough bread…it was done out of sheer necessity…
He suggested taking a step back - and just “go with it”!
Ha ha ha - he may be onto something
Yes he may be into something but there is something about most sourdough bakers that make us want to do better with each bake.
Yes I always preheat the Dutch oven too.
Scoring if overproofed more shallow but with good proofing I go about half cm to one cm and about 30 degrees from the surface of the dough. I can feel that your next bake will be awesome.
I thank YOU so kindly…
(Oregon Trail reference was spot on by the way…ha ha!!)
Have a wonderful day 
That is totally stunning @Raydee8 super oven spring, beautiful shaping and scoring. I’m sure your crumb will be so much better, please post photos when you slice into that beauty.
I most certainly will - as I’d love for you to peek at it!
(And that was AP flour…the one from Canada!)
Our all purpose is usually high protein unbeknownst to me until I started to bake baguettes. 13.3% protein The same as most of our bread flour.
Oh it is that high! That’s why it acts like “bread flour”…
Here it is Benny…hmmmm - could’ve baked longer??
Wow incredible oven spring, wonderful crumb @Raydee8 you should be so pleased. I prefer a darker bake, but that is just taste. I find you taste more varied flavours when you bake darker. But I have to say, looking back at your earlier photos it is pretty darn nice and you should only bake darker if you think you’d like it darker.
Your Canadian AP might not be 13.3% but the other day I went to the grocery store to see what was on the shelves and every single AP product of Canada was 13.3% protein.
Thanks Benny - I too prefer darker!!
I bake for my husband (who honestly prefers white puffy bread!)…but goes along with my sourdough trials! Ha ha ha…
I just ran downstairs to look at the 44# bag I have (yikes)…13% protein…wow!
I’ll keep on working on this…ohh! I did hear someone today say they drop down to 20g of starter vs 50g in this hot/humid weather we’re having…helps prevent overproofing…that’s going to be my next “experiment”.
Thanks again!
Yes some people will mix with cold/cool water and also decrease the amount of levain to slow down fermentation, I haven’t done that since I like to bulk around 80ºF.
You’re welcome again @Raydee8 so happy it worked out so well.
I saw these photos and just had to comment. These are beautiful baguettes! I would love to up my baguette game to this level, but I don’t bake them often enough to get the practice I need. Your hard work has been rewarded with beautiful results .
@anothergirl thanks so much for commenting on my posts. Yes baguettes are a challenge and since I’ve taken them up I’ve gradually been able to improve, hopefully I will continue to improve them. Thank goodness there was really only one set that weren’t very good to eat because I’m been making them once per week now.
Benny
I’m still working away trying to improve my baguette craft and baked my 13th set today. I feel with baguettes I keep going one step forward and then two back. I’ve been pretty consistent with getting a very good open crumb with lots of different sized alveoli, that is great. I’ve not been able to get much consistency with ears and grigne.
During bulk fermentation I noticed that the dough was progressing more quickly that ever before. The only real change I made was that I used fine Himalayan Sea Salt for the first time. To date, I’ve only used iodinized salt, which I’ve read isn’t ideal. So I picked up some Himalayan sea salt that isn’t iodinized. Is it possible that the lack of iodine and the extra minerals in this this salt helped speed of fermentation? I have no idea but that is the only change that I can think of to explain it. I let the dough rise to about 35% in the aliquot jar and then cold retarded the dough in the fridge to bake the following day.
Using the same hybrid levain and IDY formula and finally with two bakes in a row with the same flour, the 10% AP, I am pretty happy with the shaping. After pre-shaping as a loose boule, then shaping went pretty well as this low protein flour is pretty extensible. They did contract a bit in length while on the couche but that is fine with me. I allowed the shaped dough to rest on the counter for 20 mins before a brief 5 minutes in the fridge to firm it up a bit prior to scoring. In retrospect they should have had a longer rest in the fridge as the dough was very delicate and a challenge to score. Perhaps this impeded the formation of ears. They baked up darker than I intended but I’m quite happy with the shine and blisters I achieved secondary to brushing on water prior to baking.
Consistency is difficult to achieve in a home kitchen, even under the best circumstances. Your baguettes are what I aspire to! Such a simple bread, yet such a test of the baker’s skill. Yours look great.
Thanks so much @anothergirl I have been enjoying the challenge of baking baguettes. As I did when I started baking sourdough last year I picked a formula that I liked and then keep repeating it. I’m finding I’ve learned a lot this way in terms of what works and what doesn’t for me. This most recent bake I decided I would push bulk fermentation again and I think pushing bulk to 35% rise in the aliquot jar is too far for this formula. Anyhow, I will keep at it until I can get the outside looking as good as the crumb. It is funny that I’ve been able to achieve my goals with the crumb before my goals with the outside of the baguette. I’ve had the opposite with my hearth loaves.
Thanks for your comments on my post.
Toiling away at work and in between working on baguettes. I find I learn best by repeating things and making small adjustments to see what does what to the end result. Last few bakes of baguettes I think I lost the little bit of ears and grigne that I had achieved earlier on. I suspected that was related to my pushing the bulk fermentation to 35-40% which is great for the open crumb but not great for oven spring and thus ears and grigne. So this time I ended bulk at 30% and then started the overnight cold retard.
I used a new to me pre-shape and shaping technique that I think I like. My shaping still struggles at times and 2 of the ends of the baguettes you can see that they are flatter than they should be. There I was pressing down too much while trying to stretch the dough rather that pushing outwards to stretch. I will need more practice to avoid doing that.
The baguettes are better for oven spring, bloom at the score and now have some ears and grigne back, in fact maybe better than before as I think things are falling into place closer to where they should be. The question, to be answered at dinner time, is whether the crumb will suffer from the reduction in bulk rise.
