Back in mid-July I shared my experience restoring the ability to make sourdough breads with good “oven spring” and appealing crumb structure. You can find the story in my post: Repeat Performances. I’m delighted to report that I just repeated that success a few days ago — a real confidence-builder. I want to shout out my thanks again to The Regular Chef, whose 15-minute YouTube video for Tartine bread is so well-made, detailed, and effective.

I want to note here (mostly for my own recollections) that this batch included four small modifications that seemed to work very well:

• For whole wheat I used 100 g of Yecora Rojo flour, milled from Breadtopia’s berries of the hard wheat
• I made three smaller loaves, instead of two larger ones, which had been the norm previously
• The dough were refrigerated for 6 hours (instead of 4), at the high end of his recommended time
• The baking time was increased after uncovering my bread pot and Dutch oven, from his suggested 15-20 minutes, to 25 or 26 minutes, which was more fully baked

Here’s what they looked like when done.