I knew as soon as I woke up and saw it that the dough wasn't going to be ready in time for what my day allowed. It was a very nice day yesterday and I opened the doors and turned off the heat. I also neglected to turn the heat back on when the sun went down so the house was cooler than usual. I obviously need to build a proofing chamber now. And for the bakes, well they'd just have to be under proofed.

But I did plan on doing something different this time. I wanted to bake two batches of four loaves, eight in total, each at 600g. What could I learn from that?

Well, first off, the oven was too hot at 550°F for just four loaves of that size. The first batch cooked way too fast even after lowering the temp to 510°F once the loaves were in. And the second batch I dropped down to 490°F for the whole bake, which seemed to help a bit. The lesson learned here was that if I'm going to have the oven that high I need to have more dough in there to soak up all the heat.

Here's the timeline:

Bake One

• 0m Four loaves in and water added to little pot. Temp dropped to 510°F.
• 6m There doesn't seem to be enough steam in there and I can tell the dough is hardening, so I gave a couple of loaves a second score.
• 11m Time to spin the loaves 180°.
• 16m Things are not looking good. The spring is super weird and characteristic of it being under fermented.
• 18m Three loaves out.
• 19m All out. This bake was too quick and I'm worried about the insides.

Bake Two

• 0m Four loaves in and water added to little pot. The oven was set to 490°F and stayed there.
• 11:30m Spin the loaves 180°.
• 19m Take a couple out.
• 20m All out.

Seeds and nuts and stuff. But I won't get to taste it because it all goes to friends tonight.