Extremely novice sourdough baker

Hello everyone.

I’ve been baking sourdough now for about 2 months with varying degrees of success....I’ve certainly learned the hard way that a 100% wholemeal rye sourdough is probably not the easiest loaf to eat!

I’m currently using white rye in my starter (I haven’t gone to the effort of properly measuring/ managing the hydration levels yet.....I am yet to figure that out!) and dove foods organic strong white bread flour for the bake. This has been reasonably stable and whilst the loaves are starting to look and taste good, I’ve not yet had a really hole-y crumb structure....there have been a few popping up but nothing to shout from the rooftops about.

I think the problem lies in my timings so i’ll Continue to experiment with those. My shaping skills are also in need of work but are much better than they were a couple of weeks ago. 

I write this whilst I have two bannetons filled with dough and very little rise coming after shaping. For the first time, I shaped with wet hands rather than floured and things got a little stickier than I would’ve liked so we’ll see what happens in the next hour!

Anyway, just wanted to say hi...i’ll be sure to post more as I improve and will no doubt ask for more specific advice as I start to figure out what I need to ask!

Thanks :-)

alex