Okay, disclosure: I went about this formula so casually that it's hardly fair to put either the original baker's or the author's name on the results. But the Country French was my starting point, and it's a popular bread on the Fresh Loaf Bread Blog, so I'm admitting the inspiration.
My starter this time is Maggie Glezer's firm starter (I usually use a wetter starter and rarely maintain exact proportions). Glezer has you take a rough-grind whole wheat flour and sieve out the bran to make a "high-extraction" flour for the bread, but I didn't have that, so I went with King Arthur's regular white whole wheat and bread flours, plus the small portion of (Bob's) rye that the formula calls for. I also threw in about a cup of Heritage Flakes cereal, so, yes, this is a pretty loose interpretation all around.
As a wild yeast bread, the rise times on this large loaf are pretty heroic -- 8 hours for the "batter-like" levain, 3 hours initial rise, and 4 hours (maybe more) as a proofed loaf in the couche. In an additional departure from the formula, I proofed the loaf in the fridge overnight (had to).
I continue to find that breads made out of Artisan Baking seem somewhat wetter than described, if not a great deal -- this is no doubt due to my having to measure by volume instead of weight. It did make a somewhat wobbly loaf, so I'm hoping that the oven spring will be good. Nice floured pattern on the loaf this morning when I flipped it out of the floured-towel-lined colander I used for proofing.
The peel that my baking friend gave me continues to be essential -- the only other way for me to get such a large loaf onto the stone would've been parchment, or a truly lucky flip.
Results later today.
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