I think I messed up :(
Well my english muffin bread turned out very well so this morning I wanted to try a basic white sourdough bread. Following the suggestions in my last post (Thank You Again to all who helped me) http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/31693/help-activating-dry-starter#comment-241166 [1] I tried the "First Loaf" located http://www.northwestsourdough.com/techniques/first-loaf/ [2]
I noted that the recipe said "1 cup of vigorous starter at 166% hydration - 9 oz (1 part flour volume to 1 part water volume) "
I thought my starter was 100%
Ahah! I think I just figured it out...... but I will finish my post any way to be sure I have it right
I feed my starter 1/2 it's weight in flour and 1/2 it's weight in water so I think my problem is this starter called for starter that was measured by volume which would make it more liquid.... right? So my dough was too dry because the starter was less liquid than the recipe called for??
I noticed that the dough was really dry (I am used to making bread with yeast) and it handled as though it had too much flour even though I converted and measured everything in the recipe by grams except the oil which was 2 teaspoons and I measured it in a little measuring cup for small amounts of liquids.
I finished up and went back over my recipe and double checked to make sure I added everythig correctly .
This is what it looked like when it was time to let it rise for 5 hours.