Moving on from the beginner stage
My starter has been alive for three months now and I've made a few loaves since then. I've learned about many things and gotten some experience with how temperature affects the entire process. Summer has arrived and I can expect 25-30º C (77-86º F) room temperature. I do have a basement which I might be using for overnight fermentation now. I need to measure the temperature, but expect it to be around 15-20º C.
Yesterday I bought some new equipment! Two bannetons and a small Römertopf. I've been wanting the bannetons for a while and got a good price on the Römertopf. So far all my loaves has been made in a Le Creuset, which works great, but I would like to have the option of baking batards (oblong loaves). Will try it out tomorrow.
It took a while getting into sourdough baking and once I got there, I've been pretty happy with the recipes I've been using. Very simple and very little care taken to how the starter is maintained. I would like to explore more of the sourdough baking styles now that I got a good start.
My care of the starters so far has been as such: I keep them in the fridge (one 100% white wheat and one 100% organic wholemeal spelt) most of the time. Now I keep a small amount at all times and feed it up early in the day on the same day I'm using it.
Example:
I want to make a bread next morning. I take the starter out of the fridge at 12:00 and feed it whatever I need for the recipe. It sits in room temperature until evening. At 21:00 I take what I need for the loaf and put the rest in the fridge where it sits until I need it again.
I've looked at Dab's No Muss No Fuss guide and might try it. Need to look into if it works with other types of flour since I want to avoid rye. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/40918/no-muss-no-fuss-starter
The reason I haven't tried anything different so far is a combination of many other things going on in life and that it can be difficult to find all the information and recipes. There is an overwhelming amount of information out there and in TFL, with all these skilled bakers. It can also be hard to find ordinary loaves with few ingredients. All kinds of pastries are found here. I need to go through my bookmarks to see if I've found some before that I can try.
Comments
Today's loaf was not my biggest success. I treated it the way I always have in colder weather. I knew it could be an issue, and it was. Left the dough overnight in room temperature and it over fermented. The dough was sticky and gooey. Still baked it and it is edible, but pretty flat.
I fed both my starters today and tomorrow I will make Dab's No Muss No Fuss Starter out of both of them. I'll keep some of the starters in case it doesn't work out. I've read her post a few times and start to get the hang of what is happening now. It sounds good being able to keep a starter for 16 weeks without feeding, just using a few grams when baking. This also lines up well with my want to making levain.
I've also been looking at some posts about retarding the dough, which sounds like a great idea in these days. The weather is warm and it's difficult to know how long to ferment. If I use the fridge for fermentation, the results will be more predictable all year around.