Long Time Lurker, Finally Joining In

I'm a long time home baker, and a recent convert to sourdough. I started lurking around here when I started getting into sourdough, I've learned a ton from the forums and blogs! I keep a personal blog elsewhere, but am finding I want someplace to keep track of my baking experiments. So...here I am.

I first tried sourdough baking around 10 or so years ago when I lived in NYC, and loved the results, but I think I knew at the time I still had a lot to learn about bread baking before seriously tackling sourdough. I now live in San Francisco, and find that my sourdough is often coming out too sour for my tastes. So that's my big challenge, how to make good sourdough that doesn't taste too sour when I live in the one place in the world with the dang bacteria.

I have two happy starters - one is a SF Goldrush I purchased ages ago, the other is a wild yeast starter I made here. I much prefer the wild starter, it's very irregular and can rise like crazy, which I love. The goldrush is much more like, well, commercial yeast, very even and reliable. Reliable's boring, though.

I'm in the process of converting my Goldrush to whole wheat (KA organic) right now, I'm curious what whole wheat starter will do to the final taste. I have only fed with white flour until now (KA Flour, unbleached, mostly AP for feedings, bread flour for baking), and it's fun to see how differently it's reacting with whole wheat. I always use tap water that's been sitting on my counter for 12 hrs or so, room temperature, 100% hydration. I have had terrible results with bottled water and filtered water, there's something in that tap water, I guess?

I'm hoping the goldrush will peak up later today so I can mix up a sponge tonight and bake tomorrow, but I'm not sure it will be possible. I did keep the discarded starter from this morning's feeding to use in pizza dough for tonght, though, so at least I'll get something in, even if I'm going to have to cheat with added yeast.

I also need to find my camera so I can start taking decent pictures!