Half Whole Wheat Baguette

It’s never that great coming back from vacation, but one thing I can always look forward to firing one of my pizza ovens. You just can’t beat a good fire to lift your spirits. Another interesting thing about having been away is that the cupboard can be pretty bare — which was the case today, where I could barely scrape together 500 kg of flour without having to go shopping. The result was a fun 50% white whole wheat/50% Caputo pizzeria flour formula, with 70% hydration.

I also used an airtight Tupperware container for my bulk fermentation, and it seems to have  helped. That, and it doesn’t seem to add too much to the clean up time — which is one of the most important factors in determining my day-to-day baking processes.

The fire went fast and I hit a nice oven baking temperature in about an hour and 15 minutes. I raked the coals to the outer edge of the cooking floor after the fire burned down,  hit a nice balance between the dome and floor temperature.

In order, fire, bread and a nice crumb structure. With my focus on eating healthy and replacing simple carbs with more complex carbs, this one might be a keeper.

One last note. I’m going to have to put some attention into making two baguettes that look the same in the same batch. Mine seem to always look different.