The New Guy!

Greetings!

First of all, i'm super excited to have found this forum.   There seems to be endless amounts of information through the pages! My very first bread book i purchased was Ken Forkish's book (about 3-months ago) and I've become obsessed with every page of it.  I'm still in the process of making my first Leavan (about 3 days in) and I can hardly wait to start using it.  Since i've purchased the book i've baked about 14-16 loaves of bread, using various methods (biga, poolish, straight methods) and each one comes out tasting great, but natural leavened bread is my ultimate goal.  I have Tartine Bread ordered and should be receiving it soon, I'm sure I'll have a ton of fun with it!

I began like Ken recommended by letting the dough create its own scores on the top and some of the outcomes were great.  Nice tasting crust, and a pretty open crumb.

I've recently tried a few loaves by scoring them (normal razor blade).  Overall it seems to open up decently horizontally, but i'm not getting much vertical ear that i see often on loaves.   I feel like i'm cutting deep enough, but perhaps i'm not getting enough steam in it via dutch oven method?

Overall the last three months have been amazing, i can't wait to see what the next 30+ years of bread baking bring me.

Cheers!