Finally got around to actually baking my first loaves of Chad Robertson's Country Loaf. One of the best loaves I've baked thus far. I did use a different starter than what he recommends. It is based on white and rye flour and I fed it every 12 hours for 20 days. It was probably ready after about 5 days but I just couldn't get it together to do the actual baking.
Had plenty of time today starting at 6 AM. Baked two loaves, one of which came out really nice. With the second loaf I had some temp issues with the oven. Not as much spring and yet to slice it open to check out the crumb.
This loaf is really moist, airy and with a crispy crust.
There are a couple of things that confuse me about Chad's recipe. He talks about one step in the evolution of his baking process, (1:04) he was forced to retard the dough in the fridge overnight as he needed sleep. He determined that the flavor profile was much stronger and implied that this was his process for baking his breads. However, his recipe does not include this technique.
Secondly, this blog post in freshloaf.com is by a guy who went to the Tartine Bakery in San Francisco and bought a loaf to compare it to ones he had been making using the recipe in the book. He noticed that the two loaves differed in that Robertson's loaf was darker, had a moister crumb and was distinctively more sour. After fiddling with the recipe, he found that he could replicate the store bought loaf by changing the mix of bread flour to whole wheat flour (800/200 as opposed to 900/100 from the book) increase the hydration from 75% to 80% and to retard the dough in the fridge for 14 hours to increase the sour flavor. This is consistent with his comments in the video from his website.
The last issue I have is with another video of Chad giving a class in Denmark which represents yet another inconsistency with his published recipe. In the video, not only does he give a great demo of how he folds and shapes his loaves (3:14) but he refers very specifically to the fact that he uses very young leaven (2:20). He says that he will mix the leaven and add it to the dough after only after 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Very different than the 10 - 16 hours in the book.
Certainly variations I will experiment with over time.
Anyone else a fan of Robertson's bread?
