The Start of My Sourdough Journey

I thought I'd posted pictures of my beginnings with sourdough, but alas, something happened with my phone I'm seeing because there isn't anything here about this. I want to catalog what I've done for my own records, and maybe it'll be useful to someone who comes along this way. 

My starter was mature and a gift from a friend, 40 grams, and I was feeding a 1:1:1 ratio twice/day. I quickly ended up with a lot of great discard that was being saved in the fridge. It was robust and kept bubbling in the fridge actually. 

I made sweet rolls for the college kids (orange marmalade and cinnamon) and added 100 or 150 g of discard to the orange marmalade dough and while a site I found said you didn't need yeast to use discard, that was dead wrong and when the dough didn't rise, I added in rapid rise yeast in a little water, worked it in, let it sit, and the dough did respond. The tang was really nice from the discard and I'll do it again. 

1/4/25 was the beginning of my sourdough journey and the 5th I started the dough, then it was ready to bake on the 6th. 

The first boule I made was 1/6/25 and the recipe used 125 g starter (white flour), 325 g water, 500 g KA bread flour, and 10 g salt. Mix the water/starter mix, add the flour/salt, mix, sit covered 1 hr. 4 sets stretch and folds every 30 min, sit covered on counter 3-8 hrs, shape and put in floured banneton. I put it in the fridge at this point, and it got hard on the top b/c I don't think I used a shower cap to cover but just a dry towel. Oops. Should have been plastic wrap or a shower cap.

It could sit in the fridge up to 3 days which is perfection if you ask me. I could easily get two batches of this going, do the one in a warmer setting for faster rise and bake the same day, then have the other in a cooler area to rise longer and then pop in the fridge for 3 days. 

To Bake: preheat DO 475 degrees, score dough, place gently on parchment and lower into hot DO, put lid on and bake covered 30 min, uncovered 30 min or until 205-210 degrees. I went 209 degrees and cooled for many many hours. I was worried about gummy bread. It was beautiful and really had nice holes. Feel this is my go-to white bread flour free form boule and I'd like to try with half FMF (freshly milled flour). ***Since I'm working at not having discard, take 20 g out and do a 1:3:3 feed (I've never done this) or 40 g and do 1:1:1 and use when bubbly. Maybe take out small amount night before, feed at night and feed again in the morning...this will only work with a small amount of starter...maybe 10 g? Maybe 5 if doing a triple ratio...