Or "What goes around comes around".
A year or two ago, the fashion was all for long autolyses and minimal mixing with substantial dough development during bulk fermentation.
Several bowls of soup later (including my own) bakers have realised that long autolyses are not always a good idea and now I see that quite a few bakers are also preferring to develop gluten more fully during mixing with minimum intervention during bulk. Trevor Wilson, for example, recently posted about this topic on IG.
So maybe the trend is swinging back to some older techniques, albeit with the goal of producing rather different styles of bread than those that were considered desirable in the past.
Lance
Autolyse is, in the context of the entire history of bread, an absolutely brand-new and barely tested invention. I think the people who use it are gradually - by stages, or in fits and starts - discovering what it's good for and what it isn't, or what its advantages and disadvantages are, or how to use it effectively and efficiently - however you want to describe it.
Styles of bread and bread making change, both in the kitchen and around the table - the two influence each other, though maybe slowly and unreliably.
with interest Lance and it will be interesting what people think...For me it is at the moment more about being practical as I don't have a mixer and bake more than 4 loaves in one go.... so a long AL is helping me to get to the fuller gluten development...without breaking my back!
However, this came up when talking to a IG baker as well as in a recent post from Dan about his Laraburru loaf experiment. I will try to find more information and asked about it in Trevor's post too but AL also includes Amylase which then contributes to flavour development, putting is very simply from what I know so far...
I find brief references to this in different places and intrigued that people always mention AL with regards to gluten development but not so often the flavour side of things...but hey ho that is only my humble thoughs and still learning, learning, learning.....Kat
The complexities of bread making!
As I understand it, Kat, AL gives increased dough extensibility, reduces mixing time and can improve flavour. Of course, the downside is the longer the autolyse, the more danger of dough degradation.
Your loaves look great, so I'm sure you've got the balance right!
I have noticed a few IG Pro bakers who seem to have dropped the long ALs (eg apieceofbread, Chris Burger) and now use short ones.
Of course, commercially there is another factor, insofar as an AL totally ties up your mixer, stopping you using it for anything else.
Long ALs don't suit my workflow and I don't like how the dough temperature drops in the mixer. For me 20 mins is the sweet spot, followed by 10 mins with the levain.
Lance