First post!

So, as would be appropriate for a first post, a first for me: sourdough!

Now, to be honest, that tasted great. I've not baked (or even eaten) sourdough before, and the odour that came off whilst it was baking reminded me of *cough* baby vomit *cough* So I was apprehensive, before that first bite!

Not to worry though, it tasted great! I followed dmsnyder's post as the recipe (which in turn was creating Susan from SanDiego's original sourdough), except i had 500g of 100% hydration starter that was ready to go, so I used that. Also, my time constraints meant that it's easiest for me to make the dough last thing at night, and leave it for the first fermentation overnight (about eight hours) in my laundry, which, now it's Autumn (or Fall, take your pick) is around 15C overnight. Then shape it in the morning, dump it in the fridge and get my wife to take it out late afternoon for baking that evening.

I'll post up my following adventures in sourdough - this was 100% white starter, with the 50g of WW mentioned in the recipe. I've now baked two more sourdough efforts (over four days, I'm seeing how the flavour develops after sitting in the fridge for 24 hours after shaping), one with 25% WW starter and another tomorrow with 50% WW. 25% tasted amazing!

So, what prompted me to try this? I had a sourdough starter that I created from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, and with some advice from Wild Yeast. I mainly made it because I'm fascinated by the microbial side of it, and had an idea of getting some students to track the microbial population of the starter as it progressed... but no project students wanted to take it up :( (I work at a Uni)

My wife just purchased me a couple of pizza stones, and I'd just read about the magic bowl method. So I was eager to combine those two, and having the starter there convinced me to do this instead of a ciabatta or pain a'l'ancienne, which are on my list to do now!

Seems to have turned out well... as always it seems, too much baking and too little time :(

cheers

JJ