David's SFBI Pain au Levain - as Baguettes, of course

A few days ago David Snyder posted his version of the San Francisco Baking Institute's pain au levain (almost) all AP flour batard. Seeing this as the equivalent of an open invitation, I decided it was time to strike quickly. And I'm so glad I did.

Using my 75% hydration levain starter as the base for building the liquid levain, I came up a few grams short of the water, but made up for it in the mix. After the standard 300 French Folds, I gave the dough 2 hours of bulk rise with letter folds at 40, 80 and 120 before packing it away for an overnight nap in the refrigerator. A morning shape and afternoon bake directly from the retard. For a relatively low hydration dough, the crumb is modestly open.

With an increase in formula yield of 25%, the bake was 340g x 4 demi-baguettes at 460dF, steam for 13 minutes, rotated and baked for another 17 minutes with a final 2 minutes for venting. The dough was easy to handle and shaped nicely (except for that one slightly bludgeon-shaped critter). And they scored and opened beautifully. The flavor is slightly tanged with a crisp snap to the crust and fresh flavor. Boy oh boy, I love nicking some of the stuff I see on this website.

The other day, just as David was posting, I pulled a set of Hamelman's Pain au Levain with WW out of the oven.

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each other. Sounds like a white, bread porn 3 some to me but heck I'm just an observer and more of a whole grainer myself. These look very nice indeed and have to be tasty with that 5 g of rye in there messing with the white flour in weird, if satisfying ways we can't really show in pictures adequately or even legally. I suppose it just makes these baggies even more titillating and tantalizing then normal old Baggies from Alansville.

They sure quench the WBW's better than most breads - maybe even better than Wonder bread could! Well done and happy WB Baggie Baking Alan

Love the scoring, and check out those blisters, that crust must have been very yummy!

I haven't been brave enough to try baguettes yet, they seem a lot more unforgiving than just my usual shape and put it in the basket loaves. You seem to have nailed the techniques, nicely done.

And I totally agree about nicking other peoples recipes :)

Happy baking

The worst that can happen is a tasty try on the way to getting it. The best is that you'll find your ability to do baguettes is a quick learn. Some people get good at it rather fast.

thanks, alan