Long time reader, first time poster

Hi everyone!

My name is Matthias and I live in Perth, Western Australia. I was recently inspired to try my hand at making sourdough after watching Michael Pollan's Cooked documentary on Netflix, and reading the book shortly thereafter. I've been making my own Sauerkraut for a year or so, now, and making sourdough seemed like a natural extension of that.

A friend of mine got me onto Whitley's Do Sourdough, which got me started, but I have to admit I found the lack of visual guides quite frustrating ("the consistency should be like cake batter" is fine if you've ever baked a cake in your life). I discovered the joy of YouTube videos to teach me techniques like air kneading.

I've set myself up with a modest collection of equipment, but I'm amazed at how a simple banneton gives you the superpower of impressing everybody at a barbecue with a humble loaf of bread!

This weekend I baked up a storm and produced some of my most attractive loaves yet. They even taste pretty good! (click the thumnail to enlarge)

Left to right: Mostly-white round banneton-proved loaf and tin loaf from Mardewi's Sourdough, 100% rye from Do Sourdough.

The pièce de résistance would be a 70% rye baked following a recipe posted by dmsnyder. No crumb shot, I'm afraid. I only just pulled it out of the oven.

I'm already starting to swap my bread for homecrafted goodies from friends - like the jam that I now get to enjoy on home-made bread!

What's next for me is working my way up to making Karin's German Feinbrot for my family (which is German, if my name didn't give it away!)