boule of country bread II

Bread flour and terra cotta tiles make all the difference. I used about 6 cups of Robin Hood "Best for Bread Homestyle White" bread flour and half a cup of stone ground organic rye from La Milanaise mill in Quebec to 2.3 cups of tap water. (This gives a percentage of water of about 70, normalized to the weight of the flour.) Of this, two cups of bread flour and one cup of water were used, with half a teaspoon of active dry yeast (Fleischman's), to make a "sponge" the night before. This, with the rest of the flour and water and 1 tbsp of sea salt, was used to make the final dough, which was almost pourable, but that apparently is what you're after with this kind of bread.

The first rise took about three hours. I did not punch down the down but rather gingerly scraped it out onto a floured board and gently formed a boule, a disconcertingly flaccid boule. The second rise of about 45 minutes was in a muslin lined colander. Meanwhile, I covered a large jelly roll pan with a double layer of unglazed terra cotta tiles and set it in the oven to preheat at 450 degrees F.

When I put the bread in to bake, I thought, "There's no way this big floppy pancake is going to bake into anything resembling a loaf of bread." But wow! Those big air bubbles I was so careful to preserve hit the heat of the tiles and the surrounding air and up, up, up. The bread tastes great too. Hooray!