Bread

Looks dry to me.

If you look at the photos from this sourdough blog, just google searched, it shows the dough surface being wetter.

Couple tips - try putting your starter in something see through - easiest way to see how aerated it's getting. Don't forget to use the float test as well - dropping a bit of starter into water, sinking = under, floating = ready, dissolving = over. This can also be done with dough to see if it's proved ok (only with sinking vs floating tho).

The dough looks like it could maybe do with a bit more water too. Wholemeal tends to come out dense anyway, and the bran/fibre absorbs a lot of water away from the dough as well.

You could also add a tiny bit of yeast to a loaf. This way you'll at least know if your issue is with activity or not. Probably won't get the same flavour developing but a way of narrowing down the potential issues.

Are you baking in a cast iron pot too? That helps with spring etc making the loaf lighter.

Over proved? The inside looks goodish but there are some big gas bubbles, so the bubles colapse and the bread spreads. How did you bake the bread? Dutch Oven?

65% pizza dough loaf. Yeasted sourdough as I needed it to be ready for pizza the same day. Amazing the difference a small amount of yeast makes. Less flavour, less caramelisation, very even crumb. Just isn’t as good as sourdough. But blooming heck was it straightforward. Rose too much and was too big for the pot, hence the squished appearance on the left.
Bit of a guilty bake, but prime for blt sandwiches (also guilty, we don’t buy bacon any more - too many darn nitrates!).

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And the sarnie. The BLAT.

Edit, correction, The BRAT (rocket not lettuce, duh).

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Yes it was my first go with a Dutch oven and only my fourth loaf. I did half the mix in the Dutch oven and then when I saw the result did the other half on a baking sheet with ice cubes. That one had slightly taller rise but I’ve not cut into it yet.

I think maybe it’s a combo of what you and @dancing james said. About 15 hours at room temp, the dough was wetter than another recipe I’ve been trying and my starter (though about 4 weeks old) isn’t the most active. Only ever just passes the float test.

Freebie kindle bread books (free as of today 9th May):
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And a pizza one
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087ZK6BXC/

Thanks, and @lynx too. Have shared with partner.

Add more water to the starter or to make the dough?

Not cooking in cast iron pot, I'm concerned the the lid handle will melt and I don't want to be the one who does that here.

That's wholemeal right? Someone on here advised me to sift out the bran and soak it in hot water (obviously then subtracting that from your main water. I usually use about 60% (edit: 30%)white flour too. My 'brown' loaves never rise or spring as much as white, but lately I've got them to a point where I'm really happy with them doing the above.

Total quantities should add up so that the amount of water is 70%~ of the total flour.
Eg 1000g flour, 700g water.
Those quantities include the quantities from the starter.

Ok ta, yes. We haven't seen Strong White Bread Flour round here for a few weeks so just buying what we can when we can.

Ta, will share that too.

Did alright today. Not as much of a rise as I’d like, and our oven is still befuddlin’ us so I erred on the side of caution but the taste was amazing.

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Overnight prove in the fridge. Very diabetes (is this still bread?)

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Looks great!! That’s on my list; can you share the recipe?

It's from the hummingbird bakery which isn't very hipster unfortunately.

Gave it an hour to rise before rolling out and then the overnight prove in the fridge. Skipped out the glaze and did 100g icing sugar with a bit of vanilla essence and milk

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Yum!

My great grandfather was a fairly notable commercial baker who wrote a book that apparently had quite a lot of influence on how bread was made in Europe in the early 1900s. My grandfather followed in his footsteps and made a career out of bread but the tradition ended there.

About fifteen years ago, Richard Bertinet gifted a copy of it to my mum who in turn passed it on to me. He apparently used it a lot early in his career and had two copies. Nice guy! I stupidly leant it to a friend who lost it.

I finally managed to find a decent condition copy for a reasonable price today. Cant wait to see if I can scale any recipes down and make them work.

This is the book if anybody is interested. Will post some photos of recipes up when it arrives.

https://www.rookebooks.com/product?prod_id=43528

Did 15% and was still a sticky need @ 70% hydration. Came out ok though?

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Great story @Stonehedge.
I love looking through old recipe books, I have a Mrs Beeton home management book from Circa 1880 which is a real eye opener.!
I

Tried a new method where I halved the starter to 50 grams and kept the dough at room temp throughout the whole rise, no retarding in the fridge. Took 36hrs for it to to rise even a little bit so this morning I chucked it in the oven. Came out great so I wonder if I've over-proofed all my previous loaves...

It's a mix of stone milled white (300g) , freshly milled wheat (100g) and rye (50g) that I toasted before milling it. The dough smelled great so curious to try it

Trying a poolish for the first time. Does this look ready? Can the poolish go too far?

Mixed it at 4pm yesterday. Spent the night in a cold kitchen. Mark on the bowl is the starting height.

Anyone got a favourite simple white recipe to put it in when it is ready?

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.

I stupidly leant it to a friend who lost it.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Cool story tho. Interested to see the recipes/results.

Use the float test. Drop a little bit in water. If it sinks, it’s not ready, if it floats, it’s good, if it starts to dissolve, it’s over.