"Jonathan Kandell" > wrote in message
m...
> My whole wheat loaf today silently "exploded" in the middle of
> proofing. One minute there was a nice boule, half an hour later a peak
> revealed it spread and ripped open-- not some neat rustic tears, but
> most of the skin torn apart to reveal the moist and unseemly guts. Is
> this from too dry a skin? Too much starter? Too long a proof? Not
> enough kneading? Not enough punching down? Too few rises? Not enough
> tightening during shaping? Not enough pre-tightening? I looked in
> the archives and saw exploding while baking, but not proofing, but I
> can't believe I'm the first one to experience this.

It sounds like what I get when I time it wrong (or forget about it) and let
the second rise go too long. Sometimes the outer skin looks OK, if
suspiciously large, but the guts look like something from the Alien movies.