– Justin

Hi Leslie. I’ve made this recipe a few dozen times, and my “success” rate has pretty steadily improved over the past year. A few tips that seem to work for me; perhaps they’ll help you, too: (1) I do hold back on adding the full amount of Water 2. Yesterday, I only used about 75g (out of the 95). I’m thinking that even though I’m using a medium strength bread flour, maybe it needs to have more protein. But when I add all of Water 2, the dough just doesn’t absorb it well. (2) I use a mixer—twice! I use a mixer to prior to the autolyse, and let it run for a few minutes on low. And I use the mixer again, when I combine everything after the autolyse. This really seems to hep getting the Water 2 absorbed into my dough. I run it on low about 4 minutes, then put it into a different bowl so I can more easily do the stretch and folds during bulk fermentation. (3) I use my home office bathroom for temperature control! It’s a small room, so I put in a little space heater, set it for 77F, and that lets me make sure everything’s nice and warm throughout the process. Okay—those are my tips. Prior to doing this stuff, I’d get a nice rise only about 50% of the time. Now it works all the time (fingers crossed). FWIW, I’m also at 5,000 feet altitude in Colorado.