Hi all,

I'm new here and I'm still at that stage where I'm excited by oven spring (despite my lack of pizza stone) so if this is something obvious, bear with me. In other words, I've only recently graduated from baking bricks ;).

Ok, I've tried this recipe several times but I can't seem to get rid of this swirled look. Those spots are a little tougher than the white areas and tend to feel doughy when you pull of the crumb and roll it between your finger. I"ve had this happen with my other breads lately too. Also, it was much chewier than expected, almost too chewy for my tastes. Is sourdough supposed to be like that?

This was a fairly sticky dough and I did very little kneading. I just mixed (by hand), let it rest for 30min, kneaded/folded for a couple minutes and let it ferment. I folded it twice during the ferment, pre-shaped (10 min) and then final shaped. I admit that I skipped the window pane test and a second fold might not have been necessary. I let it cool completely before taking this photo and at no point did it seem like my bread had a "skin" before baking. It was at 210F when I took it out of the oven (unless my instant read is off). The dough was super sticky going into the ferment, easy to handle during the folds and then sticky again by the time I was shaping it (under developed/over developed?). I used:

8oz fed starter, 12oz water, 2.5 tsps salt, 1 tbsp sugar, 2tsps yeast and 4 -5c flour (depending on the weather in NE Ohio)

(This loaf I handled too much during the shaping, but it's from the same batch)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I'm almost embarrassed to stick this up here since I've spent a good number of hours looking over the various posts and astonishingly holey bread on this website, but I guess I've got to start somewhere :).