This might be a bad bread week. These baguettes tasted good, but there was plenty of room for improvement and they were WAY TOO WET.

I wanted to follow Peter Reinhart's Pain de Campagne recipe, but instead of preparing a pate fermentee (pre-ferment) the night before, I made a poolish. The next day, when I proceeded with my recipe, I didn't really think about the effect this would have on my bread. A pre-ferment has twice the yeast of a poolish and has a hydration level of 60-70%. A poolish, on the other hand, has a hydration level of about 100%. Oh well.

I did an 80/20 bred flour/dark rye flour blend and started off with a 30 minute autolyse to kick start the gluten. Also, still unaware of the impact the poolish/pre-ferment mixup would cause, I added an extra ounce of water to the recipe. By the time I mixed in the poolish, the bread looked like soup. I added an extra 2.5 ounces of bread flour, but it was still incredibly wet.

Baker's Percentages

Poolish
Bread flour 100%
Water 107%
Yeast .27%
Hydration 107%

Final Dough
Poolish 177%
Bread Flour 84%
Dark Rye Flour 16%
Water 56%
Yeast .8%
Salt 1.5%
Final Hydration 80%


The Proofing Baguettes
Shaping the dough was nearly impossible. There was always a part of my hand that had wet dough on it and no matter how much I floured the counter and my hands, it seemed like it was never enough. I managed to shape four baguettes and gave them all about a 2 hour proof. They looked like overfilled water balloons (but are probably a much more effective way to ruin someone's day). I ruined two of the four by transferring them to my peel, but the other two turned out well. The baguettes browned nicely and had a nice light rye flavor. The crumb was loose, but not cavernous. Frankly, I expected a more open crumb, but I am starting to realize that gluten development also plays a large role, and my gluten probably wasn't as developed as it could have been.

Overall, these were good but unremarkable. I need to ferment my poolish or pre-ferments for longer and start elongating the bulk fermentation by placing the dough in the fridge. Also, if I am going to go off recipe in a dramatic fashion, I need to do the math beforehand. Even if I had my flour/water ratio down, being short on salt or yeast would have harmed my bread's flavor. Oh well. Baby steps.