ciabatta technique whatsa biga deal

hi all

thanks for the replies on the bread machine (the panasonic 253 is now on the wishlist!) When i said i love baking bread I shoul have mentioned that it is a limited experience for me

I have made tonnes of pizza dough and foccacia but not much else, so i jumped in with both hands and made ciabatta

I did it from a bread book (not a famous one) and it involved the starter a.k.a biga. it was an experience ( a sloppy one) i found it wierd the way you basically make a normal stiff dough rest it for 15hrs and then just mash it up with water and the other flour

anyway i'll cut to my questions

there is a lot of conflicting technique info on the web particulalry with regard to the folding and resting and creating the big holes also on how wet the dough should be

mine was as the recipe i used, very sloppy, unkneadable by hand after the initial 2hr rest, i just turned out and made the shapes with floured fingers rested for another 45 mins, and baked

after the intial rest, a lot of people (americans in particular) fold it, rest 45mins, fold it, rest up to 3-4 times and seem to make it workable by hand my book says that it should definately not be workable by hand - far too wet.

heres the key contradiction out there. some say my recipe method is right as it should be mauled as little as possible after rising, others say that the mutiple folding and resting is the key to getting big air bubbles in it

whats your take on this?

BTW, the bread is excellent and very pleased with my first attempt its just not as "holey" as i would have liked

Many TIAs

niall