this is fantastic, thank you for the great writing & information! I was curious, is there a reason you go for KA over caputo? I migrated from KA -> Caputo after getting into the recipes from https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d..., I perceived a positive difference, but it was anything but a blind experiment :D.

I use the recipe from this book + the levain instructions — https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d...

Highly recommend though I believe the author is located in the Pacific Northwest, and one thing I have found is nearly all recipes should have their hydration ratios adjusted to your local climate. Local humidity / seasons tend to have impacts on dough.

One of the better techniques I’ve picked up (pretty sure I got it from https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d...) replaces the kneeding steps with folds during the first 2-3 hours of bulk fermentation. Basically after mixing in starter transfer to large fermentation vessel, reach under the dough from 4 corners one at a time, grab and pull over the top of the dough to opposite corner. Wait an hour and repeat, wait 2 hours and repeat, then let fermentation do it’s thing.

This saves a lot of effort, mess, and prevents dough from becoming overworked. Effort that can later be expended in dough shaping steps ;-).