Australian Sourdough Bread

I’ve neglected the Aussie starter for a while because of my experiments with the other starters, so I thought I’d mix up a batch of some Aussie Whole Wheat/Rye/White Sour.

The Aussie starter has the most delicious flavor! I always love smelling the bread baking. I mixed up the batch yesterday and let it sit at 50 degrees overnight (a cool porch). Next morning later in the morning, I shaped the dough and made two large loaves which I put in bannetons. After a couple hours proofing I baked them at 450 degrees. ( I forgot to turn the oven down and the loaf came out great anyway! )

Here are the loaves in the bannetons:

This was the first loaf, I think the oven could have been preheated more for this loaf:

The hotter oven or the longer proofing or both really bloomed out this loaf:

This second loaf was so beautiful, it wanted to burst out at all of it’s seams, the loaf had more volume when done, although both loaves started at the same weight. These were really nice large loaves of 2lbs 12 oz each, almost 3 lbs!

Here is a closeup:

Here are the two loaves together:

Here is the crumb:

I wish you could taste this bread, chewy, moderately sour, wholewheaty, delicious Australian Sourdough!