Really in a muddle with my soughdough
I bought a sourdough starter from Hobbs Bakery which came a few days ago so I diligently followed the directions but seem to have a few problems that I am not sure how to solve and hope that someone here may be able to offer me some advice.
The direction on the sourdough starter were to add 75ml of warm water and 75grams of wholemeal flour 12 hours before I wanted to make some bread so I took the starter out of the fridge at 7am, added the flour and water and 12hrs later had what I think looked like a nice frothy and thick starter.
The recipe I was using asked for 460grams of white bread flour, 230ml warm water, 10grams salt, 300ml starter. Mix up, knead for 10mins, leave to rest for half an hour, shape, leave in tin or banneton for 12hrs then bake.
By my calculation that meant the dough was ready for the oven by about 8am but I did check it at 7am and it had definitely doubled in size, if not more, but obviously I couldn't check it earlier as I was in bed!
I managed to tip the banneton out onto a makeshift peel and this is when it all started to go wrong. I tried for the second time to slash the top of the loaf but once again the blade wouldn't go through without really pushing down onto the dough, which then distorted the whole shape of the loaf. It was like the surface was "set" and I did wonder afterwards if maybe I should just have left it unslashed. I then tried, with no success, to get the dough off my makeshift peel onto my hot baking tray in the oven, but it wouldn't budge, even though I had oiled the surface. I am guessing I should perhaps have used some semolina rather than oil, but I ended up with such a mess that I had to bin it, which was a bit of a disappointment.
I don't want to give up with the sourdough bread as I'd like to know what it tastes like! It seems that it's needing pretty much 24hrs to go from taking the starter out to having a loaf of bread and it would be good to know if I can maybe slow things down so that I'm not having to do things at such odd hours. I had thought about leaving the dough in the fridge overnight but wasn't sure if you could with sourdough.
Would it be a good investment to get a proper peel and a proper stone for the oven as I have neither of those at present but don't want to buy things that maybe I don't really need.
Also, before I forget, now I have my starter if I want to make 2 loaves of bread obviously right now I can't as I don't have enough starter dough. Can I just take some of the starter from the starter jar and put it in another jar to start up a second lot or does it not work like that.
Sorry for all the question
Lyn