Today was my first try at baking a sourdough and I’m looking for opinions on how I did.

For the most part I followed u/cute-perspective633 recipe

But I made some minor modifications after some research

Ingredients

450g Bread Flour

150g Whole Wheat Flour

420g Water room temp

120g Active Starter

12g Sea Salt

+10g Water to mix and dissolve some salt

Instructions

  1. Fermentolyse – Mix water and starter in a bowl with a bread whisk then add the bread flour, whole wheat flour and water. Cover and then let it rest for 60min.

  2. Add Salt to 10g of water and stir, it won’t dissolve completely but it’s good enough. Then add it to the mix from 1. Mix it together with your hands.

  3. Bulk Fermentation – for me there’s no timing on this one but pinch 30g off my dough and leave it in a shot glass with some plastic wrap to act as an aliquot.

Do some 3 set of stretch and folds in 30min intervals, then when I checked it wasn’t really close to window paning so I did 2 sets of coil folds. Once it was close (I don’t know if i should have kept going here) I stopped and let it rest until the aliquot showed a 35% rise.

  1. Pre-shape – Then I pre-shaped it, spread it out, lettered fold, fold the top and bottom into a point, and roll it up and into a bagged banneton into the fridge for 16 hours.

  2. Bake – preheat the oven with the Dutch oven inside at 230C. Turn the dough out onto a baking paper and score deeply end to end. Then put the whole lot into the Dutch oven and bake for 20min with the lid on and 30 with the lid off.

Let me know if there is anything can do to improve.

by indifferent_human

37 Comments

  1. DetectiveOk6357

    Are you happy with the result? If so, there’s no need to improve anything.

    If not, how come? Explain what you are not happy with and try to improve that specific thing, rather than doing what others say could be improved.

  2. undiscoveredbabe

    May God protect you from my jealosy

  3. southside_jim

    Gotta say it looks great. Literally said “ohh that’s nice” when I saw the sliced photo. PS I am usually pretty harsh on loaves posted in this community because they’re typically clearly under or over. This looks great

  4. eclecticaesthetic1

    That is beautiful country loaf! You obviously researched and applied your knowledge to a great success.

  5. Terrible_Day_640

    What is it like to be god’s favorite lol

  6. SwimingInTheSea9098

    Truly illegal. Wow. Im calling the bread police! Please send to me for proper disposal. Thanks.

  7. SuperBluebird188

    It’s not slathered with butter and in front of me to eat.

  8. NoWantScabies

    What the heck! My first loaf was a frisbee.

    Well done.

  9. daveychainsaw

    That looks pretty perfect to me!

    Did you choose a 30% rise due to the dough/room temp? My dough is cold at about 21ºc so i’m pushing towards 75+%.

    Was it wobbly like jelly when you shaped?

    What a great first loaf!

  10. Matilda-17

    My criticism is, how dare you have this be your FIRST loaf. How dare!

  11. pige0nparty

    With all the love, fuck you for having such a perfedt loaf on your first try 😭. Enjoy!

  12. Slayer1963

    To address your concerns about chewiness on the sides and the paleness I see at the bottom, perhaps try a higher temp? I go 250C 20-25mins lid on then lower to 230C then lid off for another 20-25. Spraying with water prior to putting the lid on will add steam, which will help with browning after the lid is taken off.

  13. Msilbat

    Not quite 100s of loafs in but getting there and thats almost what im shooting for crumb wise now…..dang! Amazing 1st loaf.

  14. endlesscroissants

    It looks too delicious. 🙂 Whatever you did, it’s good that you’ve taken detailed notes beause you’ll be able to repeat it. Once you get more comfortable with how the dough should look and feel and get confident in producing consistently good bakes, you can start experimenting more.

  15. theresafungusamongus

    Yeah, this loaf looks pretty perfect! Congratulations! Now have fun with inclusions, different flours, play around with hydration, or decorative scoring, etc. Have fun!

  16. Tasty-Number3606

    First??????? I am beyond amazed. Literally looks amazing. Would eat it, make a sandwich, or just slop some butter on it to eat it.

  17. Fun_Journalist4199

    Rookie mistake there. You didn’t leave any room to improve

  18. TurboBunny22

    How does it feel to be God’s favorite?

  19. Timobek

    So sorry you got it right the first time. You’ll never know the tears of shame at your gummy loaf, the horrors of a two pound frisbee, or the accidental ciabatta. My condolences.

  20. Competitive_Menu7866

    Keep doing what you’re doing

  21. Stevie068

    Only advice would be to use a sharper blade to do your scoring so that you don’t end up with spiky bits on your ear(s). Looks fantastic!

  22. anuskymercury

    We need to create a sourdough circle jerk lmao

  23. JustStewart1

    Can I call BS? Brilliant Sourdough.

  24. LittleBugsMommy613

    Uumm there’s no butter slathered on it..

  25. EcstaticSky4987

    Hey so that’s actually a perfect loaf and I have absolutely no advice for you. Keep doing what you are doing, I suppose. It’s absolutely beautiful.