Wild Rice Bread

Here is my first time baking from Peter Reinhart's latest book, Artisan Breads Every Day. I can't really say very much about the book in general since I haven't read it. I just zoomed in on this recipe and decided to give it a go as I had some firm starter to use and no time to bake. The beauty of this recipe (the original recipe is called Pain au Levain in the book and doesn't contain wild rice) is that you make the dough and stick it in the fridge where you can keep it for up to four days until you are ready to use it. That fit right into my schedule for this week. I suppose other recipes in the book feature the same approach (which has already been the subject of a few books in the last couple of years) but I can't vouch for it. I followed the method but adapted the formula somewhat, replacing some of the all-purpose flour by white whole wheat in the final dough and adding cooked wild rice for texture as well as some olive oil to improve the shelf life and to counterbalance the drying effect the wild rice might have on the crumb. I also baked the bread inside a Dutch oven to avoid having to preheat the oven. Reinhart gives the option to add 7 g of commercial yeast to the dough but I chose not to go that way. The crumb is a bit tighter than what I was expecting considering the soft consistency of the dough but that might be due to the weight of the rice and/or the addition of white whole wheat. The taste of the levain comes through very nicely and is actually complemented by the flavor of the wild rice. Since wild rice is native to North America, I think this loaf would be quite at home on the Thanksgiving table. More authentic than frozen Parker dinner rolls anyhow... :-) Although, besides corn bread in one shape or another, I have no clue what kind of bread the pilgrims actually put on the table, do you?

Ingredients: For the starter 71 g firm mother starter (65% hydration) 142 g unbleached all-purpose flour 85 g white whole wheat flour 151 g water at room temperature For the final dough All of the starter (458 g) 312 g water @ 95ºF/35ºC 304 g unbleached all-purpose flour 150 g white wholewheat flour 130 g wild rice, cooked, drained and cooled down 19 g olive oil 17 g salt Method: To make the starter

1. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl
2. Using a large spoon, stir for about 2 minutes until well blended
3. Transfer to lightly floured surface and knead for about 30 seconds
4. Place in lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave at room temperature 6 to 8 hours or until about one and a half time its original size (Reinhart says that if you plan to use the starter the same day, you should let it increase to twice its original size but that if you plan to use it later, now would be a good time to put it in the fridge) (in my case, the starter was mixed between 8 and 9 AM, kept at room temperature and used to make the final dough around 5 PM)

To make the final dough

1. Cut the starter in a dozen pieces and put it in the bowl of the mixer
2. Add the water, mix until incorporated
3. Add the flour and the salt (Reinhart doesn't have us do an autolyse. I'll do it next time though just to see what kind of a difference it makes in the final product)
4. Mix at low speed for 3 minutes and let the dough rest 5 minutes
5. Resume mixing for 3 minutes, adding water as necessary
6. Add the wild rice and the olive oil
7. Continue mixing at low speed until incorporated
8. Put the dough on the counter and knead it by hand for a few seconds
9. Form a ball and let it rest on the counter for 10 minutes uncovered, then do a stretch and fold, reaching under the front end of the dough, stretching it out, then folding it back onto the top of the dough. Do this from the back end, then from each side, then flip the dough over and tuck it into a ball
10. Cover the dough and let it rest 10 minutes
11. Repeat this entire folding process two more times, completing all repetitions within 30 minutes
12. Immediately form the dough into a ball, place it in a clean, lightly oiled bowl large enough to contain it when doubled in size and cover the bowl tightly
13. Let the dough sit at room temperature for 2 hours, then refrigerate it (the dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 4 days)

On baking day

1. Remove dough from the refrigerator at least 4 hours before baking, shaping it after 2 hours
2. Let it rest shaped and covered on a flour-dusted parchment paper inside a cold Dutch oven (cast iron or other oven-resistant material)
3. When the dough is ready, dust it with flour and score it, then cover the Dutch oven again and place it inside the cold oven
4. Turn on the oven to 470ºF/243ºC and bake for 45 minutes
5. After 45 minutes, take the Dutch oven out of the oven and the loaf out of the Dutch oven and place it back in the oven on a hot baking stone (my stone always stays in the oven, so it is hot whenever the oven is on)
6. Lower the oven temperature to 450 and bake another 10-15 minutes or until the bread's internal temperature reaches 210ºF/99ºC
7. Remove from the oven and let cool on a rack.

This Wild Rice Bread goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting.

I am awed, I am thrilled...

...Peter Reinhart mentioned Farine on his blog. Click here to read the post.

A Peter Reinhart Talk on Bread

Click here if you'd like to watch a 15-minute Peter Reinhart video on the art of baking bread. I find it moving to see that after a lifetime of baking, Reinhart's awe at what goes on in bread-making, from life (wheat) to death (harvest) to life again (dough) to death again (in the oven) to life again (in our bodies) is still very much, well, alive!

100% Whole Wheat Mash Bread - Updated post (see bottom)

Please don't think that I am already responding to the challenge I set for myself here yesterday, i.e. that I already read the introduction to Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads (all 75 pages of them) and learned to master the master formula. I haven't moved one iota in that direction yet.
No, this mash bread is the product of two preferments which were already alive in my kitchen as I was writing that other post, both whole wheat: a mash and a levain. I had made both before I even thought of challenging myself. Actually I challenged myself because I made them both.
See, I must be a rebel at heart (at least that's what the headmistress - who was a nun - told my Dad when she made him come and pick me up from school right in the middle of a workday because I had kicked her in the shin. Of course she didn't tell him that she had slapped me first and when my Dad heard that, he said he understood and had often felt like kicking her himself but to please not do it again. I was 9 when it happened and to this day, I have never kicked a nun again, so I can't be that much of a rebel).
Anyway to come back to these preferments, I was a bit stressed out by Reinhart's instructions about sticking the mash in and out of the oven to keep it at the right temperature and I just didn't feel like doing it.
Then I remembered that Baggett's mash making method in Kneadlessly Simple was actually just that... quite simple: it involved pouring boiling water over the whole wheat flour just as Reinhart says to but after that, just to put the bowl in the microwave next to a cup of hot water, to wait 15 minutes and microwave on High for 1 minute, then wait 30 minutes and do it again, and then that was it. You could let the mash do what it had to do without having to worry about it.
But I was mixing her method and his method and even though it was simpler, it was also very confusing and that's when I decided that enough was enough, I had to read the book and understand the whys and why nots of Reinhart's technique and take it from there.
However I had my two preferments and they both looked fine. I put them in the fridge overnight so that they wouldn't get carried away while I was sleeping and two hours after I took them out this morning, they were at room temperature and ready to go to work.
So I took out the book, opened it to page 199 without even glancing at the introduction and set out to read the recipe/formula.
I was astounded right off the bat because, get this, there was NO mention of water. Mash, levain, whole wheat flour, instant yeast, salt and oil or butter (honey or agave nectar or sugar too but it's optional and I optioned it out) and NO water, which meant that, either the mash and the levain were watery enough for the amount of flour indicated or Reinhart had had a senior moment and completely forgotten about hydration or he had invented a new breadmaking technique that didn't require any water and I didn't know about it since I hadn't read the introduction.
Well, now was not the time to find out. I decided to wing it. Just to be on the safe side, I put a cup of water on standby next to the mixer and proceeded as instructed.
But the dough didn't need more water. It actually needed more flour! And Reinhart says that, yes, sometimes you have to add water and sometimes you have to add flour, and it's okay! So I added away. Altogether I added 94 g of whole wheat flour to the 255 g already in the formula.
That's a lot! But that's the only way I could think of to eventually get a mash bread and not dozens and dozens of mash silver pancakes because that dough looked like a batter for the longest time, I kid you not. All of a sudden however it decided to stop joking around and settled down to business and it became beautifully soft, smooth and elastic.
It actually became so pleasant to work with that I got second thoughts about reading the book. Don't they say that too much knowledge can be dangerous?

Ingredients:
For the mash

• 300 g water 
• 120 g whole wheat flour 
• 1 g diastatic malt powder 

For the levain

• 64 g mature whole wheat starter
• 191 g whole wheat flour
• 142 g water at room temperature 

For the final dough

• 398 g starter (i.e. all of it)
• 397 g mash (i.e. all of it)
• 255 g whole wheat flour + 94 g (see above)
• 8.5 g salt
• 7 g instant yeast
• 14 g almond oil (you can also use melted butter or vegetable oil and it is optional but I chose to put it in because it helps the bread stay fresh longer) 
• extra whole wheat flour for adjustments 

Method: Please note that I am describing what I did, not necessarily what Reinhart says to do. Also note that I used a stand mixer but that the dough can be kneaded by hand.


For the mash

1. Set water to boil
2. When it boils, pour it over the flour and the malt. Mix briefly and set in the microwave oven next to a cup of hot water
3. Fifteen minutes later, microwave on High for one minute without opening the microvave oven. Repeat after 30 minutes and leave to cool in the microwave
4. When cool and after 3 hours at room temperature, you can either refrigerate it until you are ready to use it or leave it out overnight if you plan to use it within the next 24 hours. (I left it out for about 12 hours, then I put it in the fridge)

For the levain

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl to form a ball of dough. Using wet hands, knead in the bowl for about 2 minutes until the ingredients are evenly distributed and the flour is hydrated. Let rest 5 minutes and knead again with wet hands for one minute. The dough will be tacky
2. Transfer to a clean bowl, cover losely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 4 to 6 hours until nearly doubled in size (Reinhart warns it can take 8 hours or longer)
3. When the levain is fully developed, knead it for a few seconds to degas it. It is then ready for use but if necessary to coordinate the timing with the mash, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Remove from the fridge two hours before mixing the dough (in my case, it stayed out pretty much the whole day then went in the fridge together with the mash)

For the final dough

1. Using a metal pastry scraper, chop the starter into 12 smaller pieces
2. Put the pieces and all the other ingredients except the extra flour into the mixer with the paddle attachment and mix on slow speed for 1 minute
3. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium-low speed, occasionally scraping down the bowl for 2 or 3 minutes until the pre-doughs become more cohesive and assimilated into each other. Add more flour or water as needed until the dough is soft and slightly sticky (that's where I started to add the first of the extra 94 g)
4. Dust a work surface with flour, take the dough out of the mixer and roll it into the flour to coat and knead for 3 to 4 minutes by hand, incorporating only as much flour as needed (yeah! right) until the dough feels soft and tacky but not sticky
5. Form into a ball and let rest for 5 minutes
6. Lightly oil a bowl or dough bucket
7. Resume kneading for 1 minute and make the final flour adjustment. The dough should pass the windowpane test. (Well, mine didn't! Not by a long shot. It ripped like crazy, so forget about hand mixing, I threw it back into the mixer and went at it, on medium-low, for as many minutes as it needed to pass the windowpane test and it took a while and I did have to add flour - although it set my teeth on edge because that's exactly what I hate do do and I hadn't added any water so why was the dough SOOOOOOO wet?, but I went on mixing and I went on adding flour until I had added in a total of 94 g and that must have been the magic number because all of a sudden the dough started behaving and passed the windowpane test with flying colors and I was in baking heaven)
8. Form into a ball and place in the prepared bowl, rolling to coat with oil
9. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for approximately 45 to 60 minutes, until it is about 1 1/2 its original size
10. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and loosely form into a batard
11. Let rest for 15 minutes and form into a tighter batard
12. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and dusted with flour (I used a mixture of bran and semolina as it works fine for me)
13. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for approximately 45 to 60 minutes, until it has grown to 1 1/2 time its original size
14. Preheat the oven to 425 F/218 C after putting in it a baking stone and an empty metal pan
15. When dough is ready to bake, score it (for whole grains it is best to score at a 90-degree angle to the sides of the loaf), pour a cup of water into the metal pan, lower the temperature of the oven to 350 F/177 C (I have an issue with that as I think it's way too low. I actually would have liked the loaf to come out of the oven a little bit browner and ruddier, so next time, I'll shoot for 380 F/193 C from the get go)
16. Rotate the loaf 180 degrees and continue baking for another 20 to 30 minutes until the loaf is rich brown on all sides, sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom and registers at least 200 F/93 C in the center (as it wasn't brown enough, I increased the oven temperature to 380 F/193 C and added 10 minutes to the baking time)
17. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 2 hours before serving and longer if possible.

Reinhart says that mash breads tend to taste better after they have fully cooled, and up to one or two days after they come out of the oven (store them in aluminum foil or a paper bag).

So I left the mash bread to cool all evening and all night and I sliced it open for breakfast this morning. Here is what the bread should look like according to Reinhart (I scanned the image from the book) ...

...and here is what mine looks like:

So maybe mine is a little less airy (doesn't it sound better than "denser"?) but it isn't too far off the mark. It is not however what I was hoping to achieve, which is this:

... and I got that using the Baggett's recipe in Kneadlessly Simple for a 100% whole wheat honey bread based on Reinhart's mash method. I will need to put the two recipes side by side and see where they differ and try to make adjustments to Reinhart's until I get the same result. Why not just stick to Baggett's recipe? Because I don't find it particularly advantageous not to have to knead. In fact Baggett has us do some heavy mixing (with a spoon) which I find pretty tiresome. Plus her method is for home use only. It wouldn't work in an environment where you have to make more than one loaf at a time.
Tastewise, Reinhart's mash bread is very good. It's hard to describe the flavor other than by saying that it is, well, wheaty, which I happen to love. It doesn't feel dense or heavy under the tooth, it isn't chewy, it's just a great sandwich or breakfast bread. It could not pass for a baguette or a ciabatta but it certainly stands its ground. Will I make it again? Yes, but with white whole wheat to see the difference. Stay tuned!
I had sent a link to this post to Peter Reinhart and here is what he kindly wrote back:
"Thanks for a very entertaining ride! I love that you are playing with all these ideas in your own quest for bread you can fall in love with. Bravo! Nancy's loaf really gave you great holes--I haven't been able to get those with my method. 
I tried developing a mash using boiling water and never thought to use the microwave the way Nancy did--see, we all have things to learn. I gave up on it because it was too hard to maintain at the right temp. 
My wetter version, which really can work without all the oven fretting--just put it in a warm oven and turn it off--the next day the mash should taste sweet like maltomeal cereal. But then, yes, you do have to add lots of flour because it's such a wet mash. 
I think there's room for perfecting this concept to create the kind of bread you're looking for but, now that I'm about to put the latest book to bed after a year of intensive writing and research (it goes to press Friday, God willing), I'll be taking a break from breads for a while and just recharge this summer. 
But you know, sooner or later, I'll dive back in and go after it again. Interestingly, the whole wheat bread that seems to get the best crumb for me is the spent grain bread with biga. It always opens up nicely and the spent grain adds fabulous flavor. I get the grain from my local brew pub where the brewmaster is happy to set aside a bag from whatever he's making and I subdivide it into smaller zip bags and keep it frozen. The spent grain has a lot of positive effects on the dough. If you try it, let me know."
Thank you, Peter! I'll be sure to read these 75 pages before the new book comes out!

This loaf has been submitted to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for her weekly Yeastpotting feature.

Pondering Preferments

A chickpea levain I once made for a Cretan spiced bread

I am a huge whole grains fan, so even though I loved the Whole Grains Workshop I attended last April at the San Francisco Baking Institute, I was dismayed to learn, pretty much on the first day, that since specialty flours (i.e. any flour which is not wheat) are weak by nature and since fermentation weakens them further, it is actually better to use them in preferments than in the final dough.
The baker is thus able to vary the flavor profiles while still using more regular bread flour in the final dough (thus bringing some of the strength back to it). It certainly works very well taste-wise. While at SFBI, I sampled many breads made with specialty flour preferments - as then student Safa Hemzé was experimenting with various flours - and the range of flavors was enormous. For an article on Safa's work, click here.
The pictures below were taken by me at SFBI in January during an informal bread tasting session. The breads were all made by Safa.

I asked Safa about the meaning of this 20% figure and here is what he kindly wrote back: "The 20% refers to the amount of starter I used in each formulation. For example, 100% flour, 65% water, 2,2 % salt, 20% starter, .2% yeast (optional if retarding overnight or long final proofing). You can also add some additional "ancient flour" if you wish. Note that the total amount of non-gluten flour should remain under 15% in your total formulation".
Although I loved the flavors these various preferments brought to each bread, I don't think that the nutritional benefits of putting most of the specialty flour in the preferment are quite the same as they would be if more of the ancient grain flour was used in the final dough together with more whole grain flour instead of more regular bread flour.

Of course using a preferment is in itself a healthful choice. As Andrew Whitley writes in Bread Matters, a passionate plea for slow bread, "research has recently revealed that making yeasted breads quickly may not leave time for important changes to take place. For instance, fermenting dough for six hours as opposed to 30 minutes removes around 80 per cent of a potentially carcinogenic substance called acrylamide that is found in bread crusts, and long yeast fermentations conserve the highest levels of B vitamins in dough (48 per cent of vitamin B1 is lost in rapidly made white bread".
Using a sourdough starter may even be better than just using a poolish or a sponge. Whitley goes on to write in another chapter, "lactic acid bacteria play a part in neutralising substances in wheat flour that can limit nutrient availability to human consumers". 
He explains that "the bran contains considerable amount of phytic acid, which inhibits the absorption of these valuable minerals and trace elements" and that, according to a recent French study, "the action of lactic acid bacteria in sourdough fermentations improves the nutritional quality of wheat bread by reducing the amount of phytate" whereas "simple fermentation with yeast produced less than half the quantity of soluble (available) magnesium at the end of a four-hour period compared with the sourdough".
So far so good! We have the great taste and some nutritional benefits (the nutrients present in the specialty and/or whole flour plus the outcome of the chemical activity at work in the prefermentation), but can we do better?
After all, as Beatrice Ojakangas puts it in Great Whole Grain Breads, a well-documented book first published in 1984 which is full of interesting and out-of-the-ordinary recipes, "bulk for bulk, whole grain breads have about half the calories of traditional breads, supply the most preferable plant protein, and offer valuable fiber to the diet". 
Couldn't we have our whole grain and specialty flour flavors and eat them too?
I don't know but I mean to try and find some answers.
You know how some passionate cooks or bakers set themselves challenges, like making of all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking or baking all of the bread formulas in the Bread Maker's Apprentice? Well, since I'd like to find out whether or not other techniques would make it possible to use more whole grains in more delicious breads, the (limited, I'll admit it) challenge I am setting to myself is to try and master the master formula detailed by Peter Reinhart in Whole Grain Breads. Why this particular one?

• Because my first brush with that technique was with a derivative method developed by Nancy Baggett in Kneadlessly Simple (a book I reviewed here). I used it to make a 100% whole wheat loaf and I never made or ate a better 100% whole wheat bread (for some info on my experience making that bread, click here and go to bottom of post); Baggett acknowledges her debt to Reinhart, so I'd like to see what Reinhart's original idea was;
• Because we liked what I have already baked from the Reinhart's book, such as the 100 % whole grain multigrain baguettes and I wouldn't mind getting a firm foundation as to the technique before trying my hand at some of his other recipes (although one of his mashes and his whole wheat levain are sitting on the kitchen counter right now, waiting to be made into one of his mash breads) but I am pretty much proceeding by trial-and-error with that bread since it is a mixture of his ideas and my own and I'd like to be more methodical;
• Because although I adore crunchy, chewy, holey-crumby baguettes and many other mostly white breads, I also love dense loaves (so does my son-in-law, so that makes two of us), a taste that isn't not always shared by my under-20 descendants. I wouldn't mind seducing their palate with other flours in such a way that they wouldn't even realize they were eating "healthfully", a word which, for whatever reason, seems less than compelling to their young ears... And I'll be the first to admit that it is absolutely useless to put more "good-for-you" flours in the bread if it doesn't get eaten;
• Because my eyes have a tendency to glaze over when I try to read the 75 pages or so that lead up to the master formula in Reinhard's book and because I have yet to follow any recipe faithfully. I'll have to if I want to master the technique. So I will both read the introduction as carefully as Reinhart begs us to (and I will try not to do that at night when nap attacks are more likely) and follow his instructions to the letter. That's the promise and the challenge.

As I am currently on an assignment (nothing to do with bread, alas), I can't promise it will be immediate and even hesitate to set a timeframe. But I promise that it will happen and that I will keep you posted. Meanwhile I'll keep on baking in my spare time ! Please share your thoughts with me as to the quandary between better taste and better nutrition. 

100% whole grain multigrain baguettes

If you are already a reader of Bombance, my other blog (the one in French), you may have noticed that our family is quite keen on whole grain, or rather, the grown-ups are. The kids do not care one bit about the nutritional benefits and they are harder to convince.
So I am always on the lookout for breads that everybody will like and that will still be 100% wholesome.
Since we all love baguettes, kids included, I decided to try making whole grain ones to see whether or not they would do the trick and I looked in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor for an idea.
I like Reinhart's indomitable energy and endless quest. Being one of the best-known bakers/bread book writers in the US, he could rest on his laurels and just develops new recipes but he doesn't. He's always on the lookout for new methods, patrolling the border between baking and bread science. I love it!
As Michel Suas, President and co-founder of the San Francisco Baking Institute) put it in his phone interview with Jeremy from Stir the Pots , bread baking is like a treasure hunt. You spend a lot of time looking but it is all made worth while when you make a find.
Well, the Bombance/Farine family surely enjoyed this particular treasure. The baguettes are delicious. They are no stand-ins for the traditional Parisian baguettes made with a poolish, levain, a sponge or any other fermented dough. They are a different animal altogether, a breed in themselves. Good, crusty with a delicately nutty taste.
We found that they go very well with cheese (we didn't have any Brie but I bet they would be amazing with a runny cheese) as well as with orange marmalade or honey at breakfast. My son-in-law loved them with his avocado-lime salad.
Reinhart's secret is that he uses two pre-ferments, a soaker which stays at room temperature for 24 hours and a stiff levain (a biga can also be used and Reinhart provides the instructions for that as well) which spends some time in the fridge.
The time the levain spends in the fridge stimulates enzymatic activity and the development of taste without exhausting the yeast or the sugars (present in the flour). The addition of instant yeast at the end makes for a shorter second rise without compromising the taste (since the taste has already been maximized by the preferments).
The book contains many recipes. I picked the Multigrain Hearth Bread partly because I had some cooked kamut grain which I wanted to use but mostly because I just love the combination of tastes and textures.
I could have made two loaves or bâtards but, as mentioned above, I chose to make baguettes to trick the kids into eating a 100% whole grain bread and it worked! Thank you, Peter Reinhart!

Ingredients (pour 4 baguettes): 

For the soaker: 

• 25 g whole wheat flour (organic and stone-ground if possible)
• 170 g of a mix of cooked and raw grains (the large grains such as wheat, kamut or spelt must be cooked, smaller ones like millet, quinoa, amaranth, etc. can go in raw but Reinhart prefers to cook them) (for this interpretation of his recipe, I used: 70 g cooked kamut, 43 g raw sunflower seeds, 37 g uncooked 10-grain cereal and 20 g kamut flakes straight out of the bag)
• 4 g salt
• 170 g water

For the final dough:

• 398 g stiff whole wheat starter (hydration rate: 75%) (this starter had spent 12 hours in the fridge. I took it out 2 hours before I mixed the dough)
• 401 g soaker (in other words, the whole thing)
• 565 g whole wheat flour
• 5 g salt
• 7 g instant yeast
• 14 g oil (I used extra-virgin olive oil)
• additional whole wheat flour as needed

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients of the soaker with the water and let stand at room temperature for 24 hours
2. One day later, divide the soaker and the stiff levain into a dozen small pieces with a metal dough cutter. Sprinkle whole wheat flour on these 24 pieces to avoid their sticking together
3. Put them in a large bowl with all the other ingredients (except for the additional flour) and mix vigorously with wet hands until incorporated. The dough should be slack and sticky (add flour or water as needed)
4. Sprinkle flour on the counter. Put the dough on it and roll it in the flour. Knead for 3 or 4 minutes, adding just enough flour so that it doesn't stick any more
5. Shape into a rough boule (ball) and let rest 5 minutes. During that time, spray oil into a bowl or dough bucket
6. Knead again for one minute or until the dough is developed enough to pass the windowpane test (for more info on the windowpane test, see this page of Susan's blog, Wild Yeast) (I had to knead for quite a few minutes to reach that stage, maybe because I only used 20 g of additional flour. I always find it very difficult to determine how much is too much when an author tells you to add flour without giving you an idea of how much and I often err on the side of not quite enough)
7. Place the dough (shaped as a boule) in the bowl or bucket, cover and let ferment at room temperature for 45 to 60 minutes (this is Reinhart's recommendation. Since I had to go out, I set the dough to rise in a cold room - not the refrigerator though - for about 3 hours and since it wasn't very developed, I gave it a fold after 40 minutes before leaving the house. Ideally I should have given it another fold but I wasn't around to do it. For more info on folding dough, please refer to Susan's blog again)
8. Take the dough out of the bowl or bucket and place it on the counter (lightly sprinkled with flour). Divide it in 4 pieces
9. Form each of the pieces into a rough cylinder. Let rest 20 minutes under a damp towel
10. Shape 4 baguettes trying not to deflate the dough
11. Put the baguettes either on a floured couche or in a floured baguette pan. Place in a large clear plastic bag. Blow into the bag once and close it tightly
12. Let rise at room temperature for about 45 minutes
13. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F/260 C twenty minutes before baking time after putting in it a baking stone and an empty metal pan
14. When the second rise is over, take the baguettes out of the bag, sprinkle them with whole wheat flour and score them (make three parallel cuts length-wise at a 45-degree angle taking care not to cut diagonally)
15. Pour one cup of cold water into the empty metal pan (taking care to avert your face and to protect your hands as the steam will be very hot) and place the baguettes directly on the baking stone (if using a couche. If using a baguette pan, set the pan on the stone)
16. Spray water in the oven (taking care not to aim at the lamp). Spray again heavily two minutes later
17. Lower the oven temperature do 450 F/232 C. Do not open the oven door for the next 20 minutes
18. After 20 minutes, rotate the baguettes (if using a pan, take the baguettes out of it and set them on the stone). Bake another 15 minutes
19. Take the baguettes out of the oven and set them to cool on a rack before eating.

We had just started dinner when the baguettes came out of the oven, so we only waited 20 minutes before slicing open the first one. As our house isn't very warm in this season and the baguettes are rather skinny, it had cooled down enough.