Sesame and Chia Seed Sourdough

I wanted to push my learning curve a little bit on this bake and used Benny's recent bake as my template.  This one turned into a definite learning curve.

Everything started well.  I used Raisin Yeast Water for the hydration in the levain and my whole rye starter from the refrigerator.  After 9 hours, it was 2.5x in volume.  I stirred it down, and it doubled in less than 2 hours.  Figured it was ready for the mix.  Added the levain to the final dough water for mixing, and it passed the float test with flying colors. 

Dough was higher hydration than I usually work with but manageable.  After mix and autolyse, I developed gluten using this kneading technique.  I used it on both bakes this weekend, and I can say it works quite well for me so far.

Wanted to try lamination for inclusions this loaf as I usually add them at final mix.  That went well also.  Maybe could have stretched the dough a little more, but I was worried about tearing it.  After lamination, things went in the opposite direction.

Even though the levain seemed active and ready to go, bulk fermentation took forever.  I started with coil folds every 30 minutes.  I lost count and did my best to do them every 30-45 minutes.  After 7.5 hours, the dough was getting jiggly, but the aliquot was only at 25%.  It didn't look like it had grown much, and I was using a Pyrex dish to make coil folds easier instead of my normal bowl, so I didn't have a point of reference.  The "jiggliness" threw me off, and I almost shaped it way too early.  After 12 hours of bulk, the aliquot was just over the 50% mark, but it was getting late in the day.  The plan was to shape, give it an hour in the banneton, and then cold retard overnight.  Dough was extremely jiggly at that point (by my standards anyway), and I didn't degas it very much (it was rising so slow, and I didn't want to lose anything).  It was very slack and hard to get any tension in it, but I was surprised how much it filled the banneton.  After the hour of proofing, the dough had pretty much filled the banneton.  That, combined with the jiggle, had me rethinking that the aliquot was off and that I would overproof with the cold retard.  So, I preheated and had a late-night bake.  Should have trusted the aliquot...  :-)

Flavor is good with a definite but not overpowering sour note.  Very happy with the blistering and color in the crust!  Unfortunately, oven spring was so-so, and the dough was definitely underproofed.