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Tidy-looking loaf. For a more open crumb, wet doughs and long proving are the answer, ideally with gentle/minimal manipulation of the dough during proving to maintain air bubbles. You may also want to up the % of white or try using extra-strong flour; rye and wholemeal don't lend themselves to the kind of gluten formation you want for an open crumb.
My routine is haphazard and lazy. My starter's fed only on white flour, and most of the loaves I make are at least 75% white (strong or extra-strong); I find the loaves are much more tolerant of my slapdash approach. I've been very inspired by Dan Lepard's methods: what I've taken from him is that wet doughs are much less sensitive to timescales in the sense that they don't over-prove easily, and that in wet doughs gluten formation can happen without much kneading. I work from home, so my bread-making's not weekend-bound, but the schedule looks something like this.
- Day 1 AM: take starter out of fridge, refresh.
- Day 1 PM: make up sponge for overnight ferment - 250g flour/325g water/ladle of starter. (This is for 1 loaf; sometime I double up)
- Day 2 AM: add another 300g flour, 7-8g salt, mix. This produces a very wet dough, so at first I tend to just give it a stir with the dough whisk, and do the same again half an hour later, and again at the hour mark. At that point I just give it a stretch out and fold over a couple of times on an oiled board every couple of hours, and then give it a final shape later on.*
- Day 2 PM: Pre-heat casserole in oven on max, then whack in dough, turning oven down after c. 15 mins and taking the lid off after c.45 mins for a total bake of an hour or so.
As I said, this is very approximate, and I've compressed or stretched timings without great disaster - sometimes I only refresh the starter an hour or two before I make the sponge; in the past when things have got in the way I've let the sponge ferment for 24 hours or even slightly longer; sometimes if I want fresh bread in the morning I let the dough prove for 24 hours, either sticking it in the fridge overnight or even leaving it on the side overnight (I have a cold kitchen, which no doubt slows everything down). The sourdough flavour is obviously stronger with these long ferments and rises, but never unpleasantly so.
The starter goes back in the fridge after I've made the sponge, and I will tap some off for pancakes when I feel like it or when the container's getting a bit full; otherwise I stick a glug into the breadmaker when I'm using that for a loaf or for pizza dough†.
*This works really well; I've made perfectly acceptable loaves even when I've literally just stirred the dough with the dough whisk a couple of times over the course of the day - every time you do it you can feel the gluten formation as the dough gets stiffer.
†I love my breadmaker - the ability to set a timer and wake up to fresh bread when I've forgotten to buy/make some is a lifesaver, and its 45 minute pizza dough setting means I can make excellent pizza any evening of the week.
- Day 1 AM: take starter out of fridge, refresh.
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Thrustvector
so what is your schedule then? It sounds like:
Day 1 Morning: remove starter from fridge and refresh, leaving out at room temperature (taking half out for pancakes)
Day 1 Evening: take half(?) of refreshed starter and mix into dough. Refresh starter and return to fridge, leave mixed dough (in fridge or room temperature?) for first proof overnight.
Day 2 Morning: knead dough and shape, put aside to rest (in loaf tin or banneton presumably?) for second proof.
Day 2 (afternoon/evening?): slash and bake (in dutch oven?)
I am currently struggling to find a good rhythm, and I get an OK loaf, but would like something with a much more open crumb. Here is this weekend's effort, which was 1/3 rye (starter "discard" having been in fridge for a week, plus refreshed starter added 4 hours later, plus some rye flour), 1/3 strong white wheat (including white starter), 1/3 strong wholewheat.
I usually only have time to bake on the weekend, so I tend to take my starter out of the fridge to refresh on a thursday at 6pm (putting the "discard" into dough 1), then at 11pm (again putting "discard" into dough 1). I leave dough 1 to proof overnight in the fridge, then Friday morning I will start to mix a couple new loaves with the refreshed starters, so I will add rye starter to wholemeal and wheat white flour usually with seeds or something (dough 2) and then a strong white dough that is for pizza dough/ciabatta/focaccia (dough 3). Dough 2 will usually proof until Friday night and then be shaped and go into the banneton to bake Saturday morning. Dough 3 depends what I do with it, but I usually just leave it in the fridge as a high-hydration blob until a few hours before the promise of pizza comes up. By then it doesn't really have time to take shape as I would like, but I can usually get it thin enough that it provides an adequate vehicle for cheesy goodness.