red fife desem (new starter)

Thanks Benny.  That's a nice complement from a perfectionist baker.  This may be my first real successful bake for my home milled whole grain desem journey.  It certainly took a lot of attempts.  I changed a few things here (in addition to the above bullet list I also used a more conservative single stage milling approach, more passive gluten development, and a single step hydration (no bassinage)).  I'm curious how much of the crumb improvement is due to the home grown desem starter itself (I threw the previous one out, so I'll never know). 

Most of the desem recipes I have seen use a very high % PFF -- close to 30% or so.  This probably has a lot to do with the formula in Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book.  As Debra mentioned in the above link, that may be more appropriate for slightly stiffer traditionally kneaded doughs (perhaps more en vogue at the time of publication).  My understanding was that the high % PFF was needed to complete fermentation quickly to avoid excess sourness commonly associated with naturally leavened whole grain bakes.  I had initially started at 30% but eventually lowered that to 20%.  I think I had somewhat of a mental threshold in place, as I wasn't sure if reducing it further, to 10% or so, was still in the spirit of the approach.  I had been using a converted faux-desem starter (a starter "trained" at lower hydration and cooler temperatures), based on the sourdo.com South African starter I purchased last year when I started baking, and never gave much more thought to it.  I think I was aware that mature starters behaved differently, but assumed they were, for all practical purposes, more or less similar once mature.  (I would love to see and taste a number of different breads baked with the same ingredient and formula but with different starters.)  For all the discussion about tuning hydration, fermentation, PFF, and other variables, I never really see much discussion about changing the starter itself -- aside from maintenance routines and levain treatment.  For example, I'm baking bread X tomorrow, I better prepare starter Y.  Mariana reminded me that that particular culture is known for a sour flavor, so, in hindsight it was probably not a good choice for a faux-desem, and I may have been battling its inherent tendencies, and developed somewhat of an aversion to extended fermentation whole grain baking as a consequence.

I really like the flavor of these, although I like the flavor of the english muffin I made in my lodge pan from the aliquot sample the next day even more.  That was sitting in the fridge door for another day or so before I "baked" it on the stove top.  It had a deeper, maltier flavor, and surprisingly didn't have much sourness.  I'd like to achieve that in the bread.  I measured the pH of those loaves after posting at close to 4.4, and have seen 4.2 mentioned as a target for desem in The Bread Builders.  I am curious if I can achieve the same level of fermentation as the aliquot sample without sacrificing oven spring too much.  Perhaps reducing % PFF even further will help. 

Thanks for your detailed baking notes.  They have been very helpful and provided more evidence that higher hydration was required.  My previous attempts to bump hydration above low 70's (for most whole grain flours) would result in lackluster oven spring and sealed ears.  Perhaps the starter and/or % PFF were getting in the way?  At some point I may try a 20% PFF bake with the new starter for comparison.