Second Loaf Ever, simple recipe— dare I share encouragement/advice?

Hello again! It's been about a week and I've made my second loaf.

I'm genuinely stunned and quite happy with the results. I'm not a great diagnostician of bread, so I actually couldn't tell you really if this was overproofed or not, but I liked it. Lovely taste, crispy crust, not gummy or wet texture. If it is overproofed, I guess I like overproofed bread, so my fears are unnecessary. 😀

Before I give the recipe details etc, I just want to share two things that I feared a lot when starting, and which in this case, seemed to not be such a thing to fear, and lead to what I think is pretty good bread. In this case. For me. Maybe just pure chance/luck. 🙂 I'm absolutely a beginner, but I just feel like a lot my experience and seemingly others is plagued with a sort of excessive cautiousness?

1. In my experience, I shouldn't have been so afraid of overproofing. I tried many years ago to make sourdough from my own starter and failed— and I was always so cautious of overproofing. Even both of these loaves, I truly thought I had pushed it too far with the overnight stay in the fridge, but the bread turned out wonderfully. Both of these loaves even spent time bulk fermenting at somewhere between 82-84 degrees internal bread temp, both sort of by accident as I learn how hot the bread proof setting is on my oven.
2. I dunno, just buy a starter. I'm sure it's satisfying to grow one up yourself from nothing, but I don't think mine was active enough, and I was plagued with uncertainty, and this starter I bought seems to be some sort of magic. IF YOU'RE HAVING A BAD TIME, maybe just buy one. I got this from Kensington Sourdough in Toronto, it came dehydrated in the mail, and within 3-4 days was more than doubling happily in 4-5 hours with a 1:1:1 feed. Last time I tried I lived in a rural cottage, and it was pretty cold in there in the winter, so I've just gone FULL IN with ambient heat this time in the starter and bulk fermentation stages, and hey-ho, it's really helped not being in a frigid kitchen.

I used Muscle Momma Sourdough recipe, modified with 15% whole wheat flour because it looks pretty, instead of all white flour, and I upped the water to 375g, instead of 350. I have found her shorts videos on Youtube to be just… to the point, very visually helpful, and not overly complicated for starting. Likewise this recipe/process is pretty bare bones. She just makes it feel less overwhelming.

1. Fed starter at 8am, 1:1:1.
2. Mixed dough around 12.30. 100g starter > 425 white flour > 75 whole wheat flour > 10 salt > 375 water. Dissolved the starter into the water first, then mixed everything else together.
3. One hour rest. Followed by 4 stretch and folds every 30 minutes.
4. Let finish about a 5.5 hour bulk ferment, partly in oven, partly not, keeping track of temp, which probably averaged about 80 degrees. I went out grocery shopping toward the end of this, and actually let it go longer than I wanted, as I was wandering around trying to find stupid rice flour. Was once again worried about overproofing.
5. Shaped, and into my "banneton", which was the domed lid of a grocery store rotisserie chicken, lined with a towel. I wanted an oval. It didn't work— too broad. Into the fridge overnight.
6. Preheated to 500f with dutch oven in. Probably not actually up to 500, as I only waited 30 minutes. Dusted bread with rice flour, scored— I really need to keep my little wheat scores muuuuuch closer together— and into the oven. 20 minutes lid on, 25 lid off. Lowered to 475 after lid off as I was nervous about burning bottom. Dough was a little hard to score— a little sticky/jiggly/overproofy feeling.
7. Cut after an hour because I have serious bread impatience. So so so happy. Slathered with butter and honey and dissolved into bread coma bliss.

Crumb diagnosticians: IS IT OVERPROOFED? Is this why it was more difficult/less tidy to score? It sort of dragged/tore a bit, instead of these really clean, firm looking scores I see on The Youtubes.

And to the peoples of the subreddit, thank you for all your wonderful posts! It's been fascinating and helpful to see all the different journeys. 🙂

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• Edit: Oh and also just wanted to add about the starter. Last loaf, I fed it (50g starter, 50g flour, 50g water), used 100g of it in the loaf, and then shoved the remaining 50g in the fridge. This has just stayed in the fridge, no feeding, until this loaf when I took it out of the fridge, fed, and used it. So a happy one-week rest in the fridge, starter seems fine, so far. Will this impact activity long-term? Nooo idea.