Hello all, glad I can join you, and glad you're here for me to join!
I'm John, from Iowa (Windsor Heights currently, at Des Moines). I love baking lean hearth loaves. I've tended to make a loaf with varying portions of whole wheat, unbleached white and semolina flours at about a 65% hydration, but am looking forward to working with even wetter doughs after reading about other people's ways of working.
I was a little surprised at people's reaction ("pretty standard for artisan breads") to the no-knead casserole loaf's 75-80% hydration, because I'm accustomed to looking at recipes with much less liquid when I bake my own bread-- although, that said, I don't ever really follow recipes, I just consult them. I'm not a terribly disciplined baker-- I'm more artist than scientist, I guess, in an ab-ex, thrash-around-in-the-dark sort of way-- but I do take percentages and weights to heart, and do lots of research.