My attempt at Poilâne-style bread, here's the recipe - Breadtopia's seemed reasonably authentic and reliable. My starter was rye and perhaps a bit more runny than it should have been but the dough proved nicely, sprang beautifully in the oven and cracked handsomely on top.
What can I say? I was really disappointed with the taste. Quite cloying and a bit too sour for my liking. It also didn't last well at all - stale after only a couple of days, and my bread usually gets through a week.
Was it me doing something majorly wrong, or is it overrated?
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It should be a tasty multi-grain loaf with the 3 different grains and whole gaians. Acid is what makes the SD loaf nit stale as fast and this loaf is too sour and still stales fast. Very strange indeed. It came out looking about right inside and out.
Yes, it looked the part and behaved like it should!
Quick staling is usually, chez moi, a sign of overbaking or under-hydration. Yours looks like an awesome whole grain bread, though Poîlane loaves are typically a little more dense and less dark than what you have in the picture above. Poîlane indeed makes a very good bread, but it's not necessarily any better than what we can turn out at home with some know-how and quality flour. I, too, was inspired by Poîlane bread to perfect a particular style, and I've now found that by diverting from the recipe I've arrived at what works for me. Unfortunately, we don't have the laboratory (nor the baking schedule) of a giant like Poîlane, so it's not that his loaves are overrated, it's just that you can't expect to get the same results in a home kitchen.
I don't tend to overbake and the hydration as far as I could tell was about right. I think I'll do the same, as in replicate the process but use different flours. Maybe the spelt should have been white - I used wholemeal spelt.
Ah well - you win some, you lose some. At least I was able to slash it with a signature CF...:-)