Last night at 10:30 I shaped the Reinheitsgebot dough (which had risen since that morning at 9) into two loaves, put them in the pans, and set them to rise overnight. This morning at 7:00 I scored them and put them in a 350 degree oven for thirty-five minutes, turning the loaves at the fifteen-minute mark like I did with the crabapple loaves yesterday.

I just ate a slice of the Reinheitsgebot, with butter, and another slice of the crabapple, toasted with butter, to see what the final differences were. They both rose about the same in the oven, strongly but a little wildly, and looked about the same, but smelled and tasted different: the crabapple loaves smell pretty strongly savory, like cheese, while the Reinheitsgebot loaves are much milder. Both are okay, but not great: I still think they're a little under-done, and both rose sluggishly in the pan until they were in the oven, at which point they went nuts and rose hugely in the center but barely at all at the ends. And the cheesy taste of the crabapple loaf worries me a little-- it didn't at first, but it seems stronger today than yesterday, and Kate raised her eyebrows at it.

For the next batch, I'm going to try to get the starters working a little faster by feeding them twice a day rather than once. I might also use a little less starter per loaf. And I think I'll try a couple of adjustments to the baking: the final rise I'll do in the oven with the light on, to warm everything up, and then I'll bake for, say, 45 minutes at 325.