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 [1]
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.