Finally

After about 5 or 6 months of tinkering with various ways to make bread that's good and doesn't split completely open when baking, I'm happy to report I've finally achieved a decent quality bread.. I started this bread 3 days ago. Yup, three days ago. I started a pre-ferment with 1/3 a cup of high protein white flour, high protein all wheat flour and fine grind rye flour with a wee bit of yeast. I really like the flavor of rye (side thought: I bet rye beer tastes wickedly awesome) and I wanted to throw it in the pre-ferment to let it develop some full flavor. I put this in the fridge, covered, and left it one day for the yeast to do their magic. I took it out the next day and added 2/3 a cup of whole wheat and 1/3 a cup of rye flour, a little more yeast, and put it back in the fridge to let it go for another day.
 
When I took it out yesterday, it was frothy and bubbly, much like the beer below on this blog. I mixed my final dough up with another 1/3 cup of rye, 3 cups of whole wheat and 3 cups of white flour, with a whole jar of freshly toasted caraway seeds. I kneaded this for about 15 minutes and put it in the fridge over night. I took it out today after work, gently knocked it down and let the dough rest for 30 minutes. After that, I formed my loaves, let proof, and here they are. The first one split slightly on the side, but the second one stayed perfectly round the whole time with beautiful browning on top and no explosion marks.

My next bread project is going to be fun. There's a juniper berry bush right outside of my office. I checked it out a while ago and sure enough it has wild yeast growing on the berries. It's easy to tell if something has wild yeast on it by looking for a white, soft powdery substance. If you try to rub it off, and it comes off, you've got yeast. Another good target for wild yeast is grapes. That white stuff on the skin that rubs off is indeed yeast. Anyway, I'm going to harvest, nonchalantly, about 20 or 30 berries, bring them home and modify some of the above steps. I won't add the commercial yeast to it, as I hope to get enough wild yeast propagation from the berries.

A little over the top? Yeah, probably. When I have a free afternoon next week, I'm going to start it.