Note: ~ is for high-quality content and such, and this feels a bit fluffy, but ~food is pretty dead so let me know what y'all think about this as a post and if this kind of content is valuable here.

I think there is a major misconception floating around the site about fluff. Fluff is memes, gifs, cat pictures and other mindlessly created/consumed content with no potential to spark meaningful and/or interesting discussions.

This topic is not like those examples at all since it clearly took effort to create and does have the potential to spark interesting discussion related to food, the recipe itself, etc. IMO, this is exactly the type of content that ~food was created for. So good job!

p.s. The bread turned out beautifully and while I am not a Jalapeño fan I can definitely see trying this recipe with roasted red peppers instead. ;)

Thanks for posting. I totally want to and plan to try this. I do bake, but never bread, so I am sure your recipe is as good as any to start.

I don't think you should worry about your post being too fluffy. Trading recipes is a great way to build community, and good discussion will come naturally from it.

I personally prefer the crust to lose its crisp after a bit because the alternative is that it becomes dry (or even stale) and ends up cutting up my mouth really bad.

I probably won't get a chance to make this any time soon (it was over 100f today). How wet is the dough when you're kneeding it? Are you satisfied with internal texture? One thing I learned from making lots of pizza dough is that adding in oil, salt, or other seasonings too soon can prohibit the gluten chains from forming properly. I always get the gluten nice and stretchy before adding other ingredients. But for breads, this can result in overly chewy textures. Also, I more recently started forming my doughs with way more water than I used to. I was really surprised with how much moisture the dough can soak up during rises. And it makes a huge difference in keeping the end result from becoming too dry and cardboardy.

Also, got any pictures? I'm a total fiend for bread, probably to the detriment of my diet. I'm actually craving a pizza pretty bad after writing this.

Edit: Sorry, I went back and re-read the post and found the pictures, as well as answers to some of my questions.

So my recommendation would be to try to do a batch of super wet dough. I can't tell you the ratio because I always just eyeball it. It's somewhere between the kind of sticky dough that's almost impossible to knead by hand, and waffle batter. It's not runny, but it's not something you can throw out on a board. Mix only the flour, water, and starter. Start with the water, mix in the flour. If the flour starts getting too thick, add more water. Do this until you have a decent volume, cover, and let it rise. A bit of oil over the surface of the dough will help keep it from getting too dry. If you let it rise at room temp, give it about an hour. If you want to do a slow rise, throw it in the fridge overnight, then give it an hour at room temp to warm up a little. Leaving a dough at room temp for too long can result in a flora die-off.

At this point, you should have a dough that's still fairly wet, but just barely manageable on a board. Give yourself liberals amounts of flour to dust the board and the dough. And at this point you can also start adding in other ingredients.

Hopefully that makes sense. If you have a copy of Bittman's how to cook everything, he has a similar recipe called overnight pizza dough, or something similar. I wish I could make a video for you or something, because I feel like my explanations probably fall short. Unfortunately, it'll be a long time before I can fire up the oven.

Another edit: I thought of a different way of explaining it as I understand it.

There's the preliminary mixing which establishes the dough base, preliminary proofing, the secondary mixing for additional ingredients, secondary proofing, followed by a final polishing knead, and baking.

Preliminary mixing: serves two purposes, establish flora, and form the gluten.
The flora need a healthy environment to grow, and they tend to like as much moisture as they can get. It makes it much easier for them to propogate.
Gluten is the stretchy protein that's formed with just flour and water. In it's rawest form (washed of starches), it can even be used as a meat substitute. This, too, needs a fairly wet environment to form properly. Too little water results in chains that tear apart. It looks like the dough rips in layers. The mixture can be nearly a batter consistency before it gets to the point that there's too much water.
Additional ingredients can unbalance both of these processes. A little bit of sugar can help feed the yeast, but it's too easy for salt.

First proof: this allows time for the flora to propogate throughout the dough. I normally coat the dough with some olive oil just on the outside to hold in the moisture (on very wet mixes, just pouring on a tablespoon and brushing it around does the trick fine), and cover the dough (not the bowl) loosely with clingwrap. I make sure it's loose with extra on all sides so that as it rises, it doesn't end up with uncovered patches.
During this phase, gluten chains may continue to slowly form if there is enough moisture.

Secondary mixing: Once the gluten and flora are well establish, the dough can handle the addition of all different kinds of ingredients. "Punching down" the dough basically just means popping a lot of the gas bubbles. This gas is released as a byproduct of the flora metabolism. Too much of it can deprive them of oxygen, resulting in slower metabolism or at worse a die off. Kneading exposes fresh surface area and folds in more oxygen.
Gluten chains develop further in this stage. But if you have large/sharp material (i.e. anything other than powders and liquids), be aware that over-kneading can result in gluten breakdown.

Second proof: relatively short and quick. There's a lot of flora and they'll get to work much more quickly now. It'll balloon up quickly, so keep it covered so it doesn't get a dry outer layer.

Final shaping: punch it down to pop the big bubbles, but don't knead it much because you're going to want a lot of those smaller bubbles. Over kneading at this point can severely dry out the dough. You basically just want a bit of fresh layer on the top, and shape it the way you want.
To be honest, my memory about breads kinda falls apart in this stage. I wish I could go into more specifics about what kinds of tricks work for getting different results because there's a lot of creative and fun stuff you can do at this stage.

I'm not very practiced at explaining this, and I learned mostly through trial and error. I was so frustrated with all of the bread recipes I went through through because none of them properly explained anything, or remotely gave the impression that the dough is very much alive. Bittman's definitely had the best chapter on bread though. If you don't have it, you can find used ones for super cheap. Just bought one for a friend of mine for about $7 shipped.

Sorry for the novel! Got a little carried away.

How sticky was the dough when you were shaping it? It was obviously manageable and it looks like it turned out well, but the fairly high hydration and lack of initial kneading make me thing it might have been hard to form into a ball.