Homemade Bread Day 2016, Hamelman's Country Bread

I love Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread!  It offers many recipes that could qualify as my favorite, so I just don't bother to choose. Often, what I bake is driven by how much time I have, and for Homemade Bread Day I did not have a lot of time.  Because of that, I chose Country Bread.  It uses a biga that provides 50% pre-fermented flour for flavor, but also includes only a short prep cycle that fit my schedule.

I used even less yeast in the biga than the original formula calls for so it could ferment for a long time, enabling me to set up the biga late at night and not have it mature until late on the next afternoon, when I would have time to bake.The strategy worked out well, and the loaves came out of the oven late that night, just in time for bed.  Don't you just love slipping into bed with the aroma of fresh baked bread filling the house!?

These loaves are destined for gifting so I won't be able to get a picture of the crumb.

Happy Homemade Bread Day!
OldWoodenSpoon