Astute readers might notice that I've jumped from "Part 10" to "Part 13".

I've had some bad bakes. One I just kind of f'd up, and another one I used mystery flower (which I do from time to time because I'm not good at labeling things) and it turned out very over proofed. Two loaves went to the compost, but the other four were decent enough to give away. I guess. People always seem happy to receive bread.

At any rate, with two recent failures under my belt I decided to go back and look at what worked before (+10 points for writing this stuff down) and start from there again. But I'll change little things anyway.

So this bake was six 600g loaves, with dried rosemary at 68% hydration. I also decided to not use any malt like I have in the past. I'm not sure how I feel about it, and I think my loaves brown enough without it anyway. Baker's percentages available.

One other thing I did for this bake and which I was doing previously but had not for the past two was to give the dough a 30 minute autolyse before adding the salt. I have mixed feelings about this. I usually use coarse sea salt which takes a bit longer to disovle into the dough, but maybe that wasn't just good enough for a weak autolyse?

At any rate, things turned out pretty good today with the exception that the dough could have relaxed a bit more as you'll see in the pics below. Here's the timeline:

• 0m Six loaves in the oven at 550F°, 95g water in the mini cast iron cooker. I also completely forgot to spray the loaves with water like I normally do. I ended up spraying extra water into the chamber because of this. I guess this is a natural expiment.
• 5m More spray for steam and turned the oven down to 500F°. I waited longer for the reduced temperature because the last couple of bakes had unsatisfactory spring.
• 13m Spin the loaves 180° and turned the oven down to 450F°. Looking good.
• 17m I turned oven off because everything looks pretty decent, but I don't trust that the inside is completely cooked and I don't want to burn everything.
• 20m Still looking good.
• 23m All loaves come out.

I have some more mystery flour which I might throw into the mixer this evening for tomorrow. We'll see.