French bread adventures

The recipe:
2 C flour
1 t yeast
1/2 t salt
3/4 C water

1. Mix 1-1/2 C flour, yeast, salt, and water.
2. Let sit 15 min.
3. Gradually knead in additional flour
4. Let rise 1:15
5. Fold, let rise 1:00
6. Shape, let rise 20 min.
7. Slash
8. Bake 40 min. @ 425 °F
9. Let sit in oven 15 min.

 Empirical results:

 

Above is the first time I used this recipe, and I followed it exactly (rather, I wrote the recipe to match the procedure for this bread)

 

 

This time, I was in a hurry so I added a few drops of vinegar and performed the rise in a hot water bath:

 

I skipped steps 2 and 5, reduced step 4 to 1 hour, and may have futzed around with the baking time & temperature as well. There weren't giant air pockets like the first time, but it was still a light, fluffy, springy bread; pretty good for a total of 2 hours.

 

This one was a bit disappointing. I used the hot water bath again, did a 1 hour 1st rise and a 45 min. second rise, and otherwise should have been pretty similar to the original recipe, but the crumb came out a lot denser. It could also be the flour¹ or the slashing technique (diagonals this time instead of one straight down the middle)

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1. I used 1/2 C whole wheat flour in all these cases, but this time it was King Arthur Traditional Whole Wheat Flour, and the first two times it was King Arthur White Whole Weat Flour