Cranberry Currant Sourdough with Wild Rice and Pumpkin Seeds

You are right that there are a number of things that I follow and it seems to be working for me. Hopefully the rest of this isn't a book but I will try to go through what I do.

1. I use a base recipe that includes roughly 1100 g of flour. With the add-ins I ended up with three boules that are between 650 g and 750 g. Those sizes fit nicely in the bannetons I have and the 3 quart dutch ovens for baking. My break down is 550 g unbleached flour (our Canadian flour has the same percentage of protein as bread flour so take that into account if you aren't in Canada), 402 g of whole grain flour (I often combine different varieties taking care to not include too many low gluten flours) and the rest comes from my levain. The levain is an 80% roughly levain that I will explain later. I use 266 g of levain. I also use 50 g of freshly round flax,  22 g of salt, 30 g of yogurt from a local dairy farm, and anywhere from 150 g to 200 g of dry add-ins. Water is a bit of a guessing game with the add-ins but I aim for around 75% hydration. I look at previous recipes to figure out what might be the water amount and err on the side of less as I can always add more when I do the initial mix or at the final mix. So that is what I base my recipes on.

2. Ingredients:

Unbleached flour is Roger's Unbleached No additives flour. It is enriched with 3B Vitamins (Thiamine, Riboflavin and Niacin) as well as Iron and Folic Acid as per the Canadian government guidelines but nothing else. Every other flour available to me has azodicarbonamide(ADA.) in it. I find I have better oven spring and crumb if I use 60% of white flour.

Whole grains: I buy them in bulk from Daybreak mills in Saskatchewan and I mill them using a Komo mill. I use freshly milled because the flavour is much better with fresh flour.

Flax: I buy it whole from Bulk Barn and grind it using a Bullet. The reason for using flax is that it allows me to put more water in the initial mixing making it easier to mix by hand. It soaks up a lot of water so when it is time to add in the yogurt, salt and levain, the dough is quite firm and I can add more water if needed at that time. I am not left with a goopy mess and it makes shaping so much easier.

Yogurt: I use Slate River Dairy farm's yogurt. It is a full fat yogurt. I use it to make a more tender crust. A lot of people that I gave my bread's to found the crust tough and this seem to do the trick.

Salt: I use sea salt. Regular salt in a pinch but I prefer sea salt.

Add-ins: I keep a stock of various add-ins in an extra fridge and check out my stash for inspiration. Most of them are bought at Bulk Barn except for some that I find much cheaper in stores like Sam's Club in the US. Sometimes, I soak the add-ins and drain them using the water for the dough, other times, I just reduce the soaking amount of water from the total amount. One class that I took suggested soaking the add-ins and squeezing the water out before adding to the dough. The instructor said that it affected the dough less but I find that some things like oats release tons of water back to the dough once mixed in. I rather go light on the water and then add later if needed but then again, I don't want the dough to be so stiff that I can't mix it initially by hand.

3. The levain is Dabrownman's "No Fuss No Muss" starter. I make it very thick (it used to be 66% but now I don't measure) and keep it in the fridge. I use whole grain rye flour to feed it. The sources for this starter was JamieO from Newfoundland, MichaelLily from Duluth (Duluth's Best Bread Bakery) and one that I started myself. I mixed all three together and kept the qualities of each individual one.  I keep it in the fridge. When I want to make bread. 3 nights before the morning I want to bake (Thursday night), I take out 5 g and feed it 5 g of rye flour and 5 g of filtered water. The next morning (Friday), I feed it 10 g of rye flour and 10 g of water. That same night, I do 20 g of rye flour and 20 g of water. The day I make the dough (Saturday), I feed it 105 g of water, 105 g of unbleached flour and 26 g of rye flour. It usually triples in four hours.

4. On the Friday night, in addition to feeding my starter, I also mill all the flours, grind the flax in a Bullet, and soak or toast the add-ins. The toasting is done in a dry frying pan. I find that a lot quicker and more energy efficient than using the oven.

5. Saturday, I do my final feeding of the levain and let it rise till triple. This usually takes 4 hours. 2 hours after the initial mixing of the levain, I mix up my dough to autolyse it. It is not a true autolyse since I include all the add-ins, the flour, the flax, and the water.  The reason for putting in the add-ins at this stage is for ease of mixing. I found it a huge pain to mix in the add-ins at the first or second fold. I used to add the yogurt at this stage as well but I read recently that fat can interfere with the absorption of the water so I add it later.

6. Once the levain has tripled, I sprinkle the salt on the dough, add the yogurt and the levain. I mix it all in by hand by pinching and folding till everything is well mixed and I can see some gluten development. This takes a few minutes.

7. I then put the dough in the oven with the door cracked open and the light on. The temperature is about 82 F. I do 3 to 4 sets of folds 30 to 45 minutes apart and then leave it alone until it doubles. This takes about 5 hours. One the dough has doubled, I dump it out on a very well floured surface. I haven't mastered the technique of using just a sprinkling of flour. I divide the dough into three portions and weigh them to be sure they are the same... roughly. I do a preshape by pulling all around the dough and folding in the middle, then flip the ball over for a rest of 10-15 minutes if I am that patient. I flip it again and then do a final shaping using the same technique but giving it a really good pull all around to make it nice and tight. I pull the ball seam side down and pull it towards me to tighten it up more. Then it goes into a rice floured banneton seam side down.

8. I cover the bannetons with a plastic bowl cover and then put into the fridge (37F) for 10 to 12 hours. Baking happens as described in my other posts: Heat up oven and dutch ovens to 475F, put rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the dutch ovens, turn out the loaves on a cornmeal sprinkled countertop and place them seam side up in the pots, cover the pots, place back into the oven and drop the temperature to 450 F. Bake 25 minutes, remove lids and bake another 22 minutes at 425 F. Lazy Loafer gave me those times and temperatures and they work like a charm.

9. I cool my breads on a rack for about 4-5 hours and then slip them in plastic ziplock bags once they are completely cool to end up with a softer crust which everyone seems to prefer. I like the harder crust but since I do sell some of these to friends, I aim to please.

So that's about it. I hope you find something that helps your baking. I am always learning something from this site and I often integrate it in my baking. By the way, I haven't been baking bread very long. I started this artisan bread thing in November of 2015 so I haven't been at it for even 2 years yet, unlike many of the other posters here who have done it for years and years. Bread was one of those things like pie crust that I just couldn't get the hang of it so I stuck to a bread machine recipe. I happened to see a no knead recipe and tried it. Then I found Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish and baked my way through the book. Then I bought Tartine  3 and although I could bake his basic Country loaf, I was really struggling with the recipes with all the add-ins. I got help here and then started creating my own recipes based on some of the formulas from FWSY. 

Hope this helps!

I am so glad you tried this recipe and that you adapted it to what you had. That's exactly what I do... check out what I have and play with the ingredient. That loaf was a big hit here and I am really happy that you like how it turned out. Well done!