Sourdough

Ok, so I'm having a mare, I've been attempting to make sourdough for about 6 weeks now, and on every occasion something does wrong.

I've made it too dry, too tight, too heavy, too wet to manage, forgotten salt, broken the surface tension, not left it rise enough, forgotten to fold to create gluten structure and it's starting to drive me a bit dippy. I've watched just about every video possible, and read a lot of books including PH's Bread. I keep doing something wrong, often its something really small, today, I broke the surface tension on one ball because I forgot to flip the ball oven on the bench and ended up folding the base onto the top instead of the other way around. 

My two boule's are sat waiting for me to bake, they should be ready to go in the oven around 12. I'm not sure who else makes sourdough here but, this is, without doubt, the hardest learning curve of my life, there are so many permutations that could go wrong, and you can't follow a recipe as the weather and temperature makes the process different for every bake. 

I have my own starter, which is like looking after a baby, the OH thinks it's time for me to give up but, when you taste commercial sourdough you realise that the real thing even with the above mistakes is far superior to anything you can buy from a supermarket.

I'm not really sure what I'm after, I'm probably just venting as this is driving me up the wall. I think it's made all the worse because unlike making a standard loaf which I can do with ease, the process is an investment of 2-3 days work, and for it to fail in the final step before baking, is really frustrating. 

Yes I know I'm very critical of myself, I want one of those sourdoughs which are high round balls, with, a perfect dark brown hard crust, with a beautifully pocket holed centre. Everything else is second best, oh to get there just once.... 

We are decidedly imperfect but enthusiastic sourdough bakers. And even though my boule never stands up to being transferred to the oven without deflating a bit and even though the bread is rather too short to make a decent sandwich with, I strongly agree that it just tastes too nice to give up.

Forgetting the salt is the worst! For the folds/stretches, I set timers on my phone as soon as I transfer the dough out of the mixing bowl. I had a hard time accepting that wetter is better even though it can be hard to handle. My other main sourdough sin was not baking long enough or cutting into it burning hot from the oven, not allowing it to dry out enough. We also discovered that we had to compromise a little on the oven spring we got in the hotter fan oven to get a nicer, more blistered crust in the normal oven as it didn't whip away our steam so quickly. So what I'm saying is, I am a pro at all the problems you listed and more

My favorite recipe is the Norwich Sourdough on the Wild Yeast blog (if I'm allowed to give info for another site). The site is no longer updated, but it does have some decent videos and instructions still.

We're enjoying yesterday's bake today and I'm already jealous of your fresh bread! Enjoy