Sourdough attempt number 1

I decided I wanted to get serious about artisan bread baking, and that means growing my own sourdough starter!

I followed the instructions for growing a seed culture and mother starter in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads using the pineapple juice solution. Everything seemed to go pretty much how the book said it would.

For my first sourdough I used the Basic Sourdough Bread from the Bread Baker's Apprentice. The formula notes that you can skip the firm starter and build the final dough straight from the mohter starter, which I did because I was a bit pressed for time. I was also using a whole wheat starter instead of a white flour starter. That can't possibly make much of a difference, right? Umm...

The primary fermentation probably lasted about 5 hours, which was almost certainly too long, but also understandable because I was at the Crooked Star. When I pulled the dough out of the bowl, it totally de-gassed! But I hardly touched it! This has happened to me a couple of times before, particularly trying to bake PR's whole wheat hearth bread. I'm not sure why it happens, but I need to figure it out...

Anyways, I didn't proof it for very long because I wanted to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I didn't have much hope when I put it in the oven; the loaf looked pretty flat and deflated. Surprisingly it went spring in the oven and here's what I got:



I really need to work on my scoring. I think I need to cut deeper.

Well see how it tastes tomorrow morning!

Update: Delicious! It's a bit dense, probably due to the crazy degassing that happened after fermentation, but way less dense than I thought it would be. It's got a nice, mild, sourdough flavour. I'm pretty happy with this for a first sourdough loaf, especially with all the shortcuts I took.