keeping the vibe going by screwing up another rye

I awoke from uneasy dreams this morning at six to mess up another rye.

Past midnight last night, tired but too spaced to sleep, I mixed a preferment -- 11g of rye sourdough to 300g of whole rye flour (an inoculation rate of 3.6%) and 240g of water. I also stirred up a malt scald -- 10g of rye malt to 50g of hot water.

The plan was to wake and mix those two together with 400g of all purpose flour and 7g of caraway seeds plus 225g of water to make a 44% rye bread at about 70% or 75% hydration. But I mistakenly used only 300g of flour. I wondered vaguely why the dough was super sticky and slack (I thought the problem was that I used AP flour and not bread flour) but, as usual, ignored the real issue.

This primordial ooze-slime-sludge dough resisted shaping. Finally, with the help of a little additional rye flour and a bunch more water to glaze the goo, I managed to roll it over itself from different directions a couple of times. It looked like a wacky Claes Oldenburg sculpture: a broken half-used tube of toothpaste spouting dried up streamers from every crack. Somehow I managed to meld this unruly mass onto a sheet of parchment paper. I smoothed the top with more water, then plopped it into a small oval dutch oven, preheated to 450F/232C. Twenty minutes lid on. Twenty minutes lid off. Ten minutes out of the DO till a bang on the bottom sounded tight and tubby. And so I present my latest screw-up: an inadvertent 50/50 rye/wheat bâtard made with a 1.6% rye scald and a hydration level of 85%. 

Crispy crust. Sweet-potato-soft airy crumb. Nice sour flavor. A hint of malt lusciousness in the background. Just enough caraway to be noticed but not to dominate. 

Rob