Basic White Sourdough

This is the basic white sour I've been making regularly.  Probably pretty similar to the Tartine formula but I haven't actually looked at that formula in a long while so it may be a touch different.  This post is going to be pretty photo heavy so everyone can follow along and see if there are places where I can improve or places where people can learn. 

Autolyse:

2000 grams King Aurthur Bread Flour

1500 grams Water

At the same time I feed my culture at a standard 1:1 flour to water ratio.  This autolyse and culture sit for about 3-4 hours depending on what else I have going on and the activity present in the culture.

After the autolyse the dough has nice development and extensibility

To this I then add:

400 grams culture

44 grams salt

80 grams water

Start mixing on speed 1 until the water and ingredients are incorporated into the dough (about 1 minute).  I then stop the mixer and put it to speed 3 and mix until it almost fully pulls away from the bowl.  Due to the long autolyse this happens pretty quickly, probably about another minute at the very most.  When the dough comes of the mixer it is very extensible and a thin gluten window can be pulled with ease.

The dough did come off the mixer a little bit cold which is certainly one of the draw backs of a long autolyse during the winter months.  I create a slightly warmer proofing environment using a heating pad.  Over the next 3.5 hours the dough received 3 folds; One fold at 30 min, once at 60 minutes, and once at 2 hours.

This photo was taken just before the last fold at the 2 hour mark, starting to see some bubbles forming atop the dough and some descent fermentation. 

At the end of bulk fermentation I wasn't entirely satisfied with the amount of volume gained but at some point I have to go to bed so I went ahead to dividing:

After resting for 30 minutes I moved on to shaping:

Proof for just under 2 hours before going into the fridge:

In the morning I preheated the oven with my cloche to 500.  After about an hour to ensure the stone was up to temp I loaded:

After 15 minutes I removed the lid to finish the bake:

Finished bake and crumb shot:

Certainly not the best crumb I've gotten from this process but not bad none the less, I would have liked to see it a little more uniform structure.  Some areas were a bit dense with some larger holes throughout the loaf.  I think the dough coming off the mixer cold and my need for sleep got the better of me but that's bound to happen sometimes when you only have one day off to fit home baking in to.

Any suggestions or ideas for modifying parts of the process are encouraged and welcomed!

Happy Baking,

Lyndon