Light Rye & Light Wholemeal Rustic Pain au Levain

Place your starter in a big mixing bowl, pour just a small amount of the recipe water into the starter, say, 50 g first and thoroughly combine them before adding another small amount of water until all of the recipe water is mixed in with the starter (do not pour all of the water into the bowl in one go, it is harder to break up the starter that way, especially if you use a stiff starter).

00:00  dough mixing complete, transfer the dough to a clean and oiled bowl, start autolyse for 30 minutes00:30  with one hand holding the bowl, the other hand grabs a corner of the dough and stretches it as far as it can go without tearing and folds the dough onto itself.  Turn the bowl as you go round the dough and do about 30 strokes of this stretch and folds in total. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.01:00 sprinkle a lot of flour on your work bench, dump the dough on the surface; divide the dough in half, cover with a tea towel. 01:15 pre-shape the dough to a cylinder with minimum handling possible, place the pre-shaped dough seam side down and sprinkle some flour on the top of the dough, cover with a tea towel to rest; in the mean time, prepare a tray lined with several tea towels and dust the top with flour01:30 turn the dough over and shape it to a tight cylinder with minimum handling possible, place the shaped dough, seam side down, on the tray; sprinkle some flour on the top of the dough, cover with several tea towels (to absorb moisture that might come out during proofing) and place the whole tray inside a big plastic bag. (The dough will not have risen much at this stage.)06:30 one hour before baking, turn the oven on to pre-heat to 250C(It was an unusually cool summer day; my temperature was only around 20 – 23C. Depending on your room temperature, your proving time may be a lot shorter, so you will need to watch your dough.  My dough was about 2 + 1/2 times the original volume when proofing was done.) 07:30 load the dough onto the baking stone and steam the oven with one cup of hot water, immediately turn the oven down to 230 C. Bake for 15 minutes, rotate the dough so it gets even browning, turn the oven down to 220 – 210C if need be and bake for a further 25 – 30 minutes. (There was a very good oven spring. Total volume was about 3+1/2 to 4 times the original volume.  I did not score my dough because it was full of bubbles and seemed to be very delicate to touch, but if I make it again, I will.)