whole wheat sourdough

this is my first non rye sourdough bread. i used the laurel's bread book whole wheat sourdough recipe, but i used the rye sourdough starter that i seeded w/ my peter reinhart sourdough formula and then elaborated w/ the greenstein sour corn rye method from david. the bottom line is that i had an active sourdough starter.....but not one of her's.....

here's the picture.....(i couldn't resist the prettiness of the white flour on the banneton....) but otherwise it's whole wheat or whole rye (starter)

whole wheat sourdough 

since i baked one large loaf instead of two smaller ones, i kind of winged the baking.......she said to do 10 minutes at 450 and then lower to 325 for 40 minutes for two smaller loaves. i preheated to 475, lowered to 450 when i put the loaf in, and then baked 20 minutes at 450. checked the loaf and put back in for another 20 minutes at 450 (this was underneath the cloche). then i baked the last 20 minutes lowered to 325 with out the cloche. i think i got decent oven spring.....i guess it's not overwhelmingly impressive, but at least i got something. i'm wondering if i shouldn't have had the dough a tad more hydrated....it was sticky but not sloppy. kneaded for about 30 minutes......(i had a sore finger.....and so i had to take it a bit slower, but i got good gluten development ala window pane test.)  

the crumb pix will follow tomorrow.