First load

Just wanted to discuss get a few tips for my next loaf.

Please see my previous posts where I was having problems with my starter not doubling. I then started wrapping it in a hot water bottle after feeding and it seemed to do the trick.

After a week of it rising and falling predictably I thought it was time to bake.

I was following the tartine recipie but halved everything to make one loaf.

So it was

100g leaven
375g water
500g flour
10g salt

I made my leaven Thursday night and left it overnight wrapped in the hot water bottle.

Friday morning I did the float test and it floated. I then did my mixing.

For the stretch and folds I did them every half hour for the first 2 hours and then one more after an hour. So after this 3 hours I left my dough to do the bulk ferment.

Originally I thought this was going to take ages as my house is pretty cold. But then I made a proofing box in my oven and it was sat at 72 degrees. Because of plans and other stuff I left it for a further 7 hours until I did my preshaping. This was too long I believe.

When coming to do my preshaping I thought I had really messed up and overproofed it as it was so wet and hard to tighten. I had to do 2 preshapes to get any sort of structure but it was still wet and sticky.

After this I did my bench rest and final shaping and put it in my basket. I pinched the sides into the middle and left it in the fridge for 9 hours. After putting it in the fridge I was a little disappointed and thought it was going to turn out like one of these gummy pancakes.

But after dumping it onto my parchment paper it seemed to be holding some shape.

I don’t have a razorblade so used a sharp knife to score it and did the Dutch oven cooking method – 20 mins lid on, 30 mins lid off

Overall I think it turned out ok for my first loaf. But wanted to discuss a few points

There is no big expansion or ear – I presume my score wasn’t deep enough?

How do you guys think the crumb looks? I think it is a tiny bit gummy but no where near as bad as I was thinking.

Is the tartine recipe a hard one to follow for your first time? Would you choose a simpler one?

And does it sound like I overproofed it?

Thanks all.