Rustic Bread
Rustic Bread: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/rusticbread
2 large loaves
Preferment:
|
2 loaves |
1 loaf |
|
1 lb. bread flour (3 ½ cups, 457 g) |
½ lb. (1 ¾ c., 227 g) |
|
9.5 oz. water (1 ¼ cups, 280 ml) |
4.75 oz (140 ml) |
|
½ tablespoon salt |
¼ tablespoon |
|
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast |
1/16 |
Final dough:
|
2 loaves |
1 loaf |
|
10 oz. bread flour (2 1/2 cups) |
5 oz. (1 ¾ c, 140 g) |
|
6 oz. whole wheat or rye flour or a mixture of them (1 1/2 cups, 170 g) |
3 oz. (¾ c, 85 g) |
|
12.5 oz. water (1 1/2 cups, 370 ml) |
6.25 oz (¾ c, 185 ml) |
|
½ tablespoon salt |
¼ |
|
½ teaspoon instant yeast |
¼ |
|
all of the preferment |
|
Put the yeast in the water and stir. Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl and pour in the yeasted water. Mix until the flour is hydrated, adding more water if necessary. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave the pre-ferment out at room temperature overnight (up to 16 hours or refrigerate.)
To make the final dough, combine all of the ingredients except the pre-ferment in a mixing bowl. Chop the pre-ferment up into small pieces and mix it until they are thoroughly combined - 5 minutes by machine.
Place the dough in a greased bowl, ferment for 2 1/2 hours, fold the dough twice (30, 60 min).
(Folding = taking the dough out of the bowl, spreading it out a little on a clean surface, folding it in thirds like a letter, rotating it 90 degrees and folding it up again, returning to the bowl and covering it again.)
At the end of the fermentation, divide the dough into two pieces and preshape each into a ball. Cover with a clean towel and let each rest for 5 to 10 minutes before shaping into the final shape. Once shaped, cover the loaves with a clean towel and set aside for a final rise, approximately 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.
Halfway through the final rise, begin preheating the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are using a baking stone, preheat it as well. Right before placing it in the oven, score the loaves. Place them in the oven and use whatever technique you use to create stream in the oven (squirt bottle, skillet full of hot water, etc.) to encourage proper crust development.
After 20 minutes of baking, rotate the loaves 180 degrees so that they'll bake evenly. Bake until an instant read thermometer reads around 200 degrees, which took approximately 35 minutes for the batard ("football") shaped loaves.