Bread Log 2: Ciabatta with Stiff Biga

I must admit I modified this formula in a couple ways to mesh more closely with the ciabatta I made at the bakery, rather than adhering strictly to Hamelman's recipe. First, I chose to add 3% flour weight in olive oil, and second I added a 20 minute autolyse in between incorporating the ingredients and the mix proper. 
**The autolyse technique is basically a way of shortening the eventual mix time, while allowing for better texture, flavor, and better oven-spring.  The best part is, all you have to do is . . . nothing!  When autolysing a dough, you add your flour and water (and if you are using a liquid preferment like a poolish you can add that too) and then let it rest from 20 minutes to an hour.  This allows time for the flour to fully hydrate, and in spite of no physical activity gluten begins bonding.  It is important to take note of the things you DON'T add before autolysing: Salt, non-liquid preferments, and yeast.  All of which will at least partly negate the benefit of the technique.**
Ciabatta is a high hydration dough, with a water content equal to 73% of the flour content, which gives the crumb an open texture and a good deal of lightness relative to it's volume.  On the flip-side the high water content can make it a bit of a pain to deal with, as learning to manage the dough once it's time for shaping can be it's biggest challenge.  Compared to the final dough the preferment, called a biga [bee-gah], is very stiff coming in at a scant 60% hydration.  Here is the biga at hour zero:
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A far cry from the 100% hydration poolish used with the baguettes:
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Another change to the Hamelman instructions I made was to the mix time and number of folds I gave the dough during bulk fermentation.  I have found that wetter doughs are slow to develop in my kitchenaid, thus, both of these things were done to compensate for the lack of development of the dough while in the mixer.  I took the opportunity to take a picture of the dough at each interval of the bulk fermentation minute 0, 30, 60, 90, and 120, so that you could see the total rise.
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Here are some pictures of the final ciabatta loaves and their crumb:
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It is a very versatile dough, and can be used not only for the standard ciabatta loaf, but also for focaccia, rustic round loaves, as well as a tasty pizza dough. 
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With just a rough shaping and a bit of extra bench proofing time, I made this large rustic boule I made from the same batch of dough.
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This is my lovely wife with her, chicken chive and gorgonzola pizza, also made from the same dough.

Here are the details of the bake:
Room Temp: 68.7
Flour Temp: 67.4
Water Temp: 90.5
Final Temp: 79.0
20 minute autolyse
3 minutes mix at speed 2, followed by cutting with the bench knife, and finished with 2 minutes at speed 3.
2 hrs bulk fermentation with 2.5 folds
~30 minutes bench proof for the ciabata and 1 hour+  for the rustic boule
Pre-steam, + as much steam as I could manage.

Thanks as always for reading!

Vino