re: Baking Bread 101: Beginning a sourdough starter (pics)

I just did my third fold. The dough feels pretty tight. I can grab a quarter of it with wet hands and it holds its weight a bit. I did notice as I was folding there were a few half dollar sized bubbles, so there's definately action in it.

I'll do a fold in another hour and then let it sit out for the long night. Curious to see how it looks in the morning.

Well this one was another flop. It did rise a bit in the banneton, but when I turned it out it just immediately spread out into a glob. There's no structure to it at all. It's in the oven, but it's going to be a pancake.

It is rising in the oven more than any of my previous baked. Maybe I got too dismayed too soon. Got about 40 minutes left and well see.

I think that is what I decided as s well. I'm going to step away from sourdough and try some of the packet yeast recipes instead. I think they may be a little easier, especially since I have a notably cold environment. I realized it was 63 degrees in the room it bulk fermented in last night. That's just too cold for this levain to activate in i think. Next time it will start in the oven with the girls light on overnight

Or your starter just isn’t ready yet. It can take longer than you think to build a decent yeast colony.

Definitely bake some Forkish loaves using yeast. The dough handling and other skills you develop are important, whether the dough is wild yeast or commercially leavened.

Oh no, that's why I am here. I want to figure this out.

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Oh no, that's why I am here. I want to figure this out.

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Try the White Bread with poolish recipe, it's a good slump buster

I would recommend you buyy this book if you want to get into it:

Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish - $2.99 for E-edition

Sliced shot of that loaf shows some big fat bubbles—so your starter must be active and your levain was active, too. What I’m seeing is poor crumb structure, which is likely due to underdeveloped gluten. You need to stretch and fold more thoroughly, or maybe a couple more times. When you stretch and fold, you should be lifting all the way from the bottom, pulling quite vigorously, and folding the dough over onto itself. Don’t just do 2-3 s&fs, do 5-6, or until you feel the dough’s texture changing under your hands. The change in texture will be subtle during the first s&f, but subsequent series should deliver a noticeable firming from the first series s&f to the last. By the last series, the dough should cling to itself; when you grab it, it will want to lift from the container as a single piece.

Crumb structure indicates that you’ve not shaped the dough sufficiently. Shaping essentially takes those big gas pockets and subdivides them into more and smaller ones, giving a more even crumb structure, thus better oven spring and overall texture/appearance.

Keep on trying......if you’re sick of heavy loaves, you can turn em into croutons, bread crumbs, or feed em to the birds. Crows love hunks of crusty bread!

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Just found it in the preferments section. I'm doing this one next

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I had good success with it. When are you starting it?