Made my first sourdough bread tonight and WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME IT WAS EASIER THAN USING COMMERCIAL YEAST

Fuck that looks good

God damn user that looks great. Would you mind sharing the recipe?

Nice looking loaf, mate. Post recipe plz

it's fucking delicious. friday i got gifted a sourdough starter and had no idea what to do with it. this morning i fed it and split it in two, let one of them rise for like 3 hours until a spoonful floated in water, and and then made this recipe (starting at step 2):
karenskitchenstories.com/2017/05/tartine-basic-country-bread.html

i'm used to making high hydration doughs with commercial yeast, but this one was so much easier to work with. after 3 hours of stretch and folds, the dough was pliant yet easy to work with. shaping the loaves was shockingly easy and not sticky.

the ring that doesn't have the flour is what's called the "oven spring," where the dough expands while it cooks.

the "ear" is easier to see in it's the lip where you've scored the dough and it springs underneath, creating the little rising lip here

oh, with this recipe -- i immediately put one loaf into the fridge after shaping it, and left the other out on the counter for 30 minutes. i was gonna do a 2 hour proof at room temp but it rose like CRAZY so i put it in the fridge as well. after about an hour i preheated my oven with the dutch oven in it, and then baked the one that had risen a bit at room temp. then i baked the second, fully refrigerated one. the OP pic is the first loaf, the second one is the one with the good ear.

So is the ear usually right above the oven spring?

yeah, usually. it's the upper part of the skin of the bread after you score it, that usually rises higher/flips up a bit as it cooks and gets darker

the idea behind an ear and why it's desirable is that it creates a controlled area for the bread to expand/rise/"bloom" in a desirable way. bread's gonna expand while baking regardless of scoring, but a nice ear is indicative of good technique.

THEY don't want you to know

make sure to keep some of the yeast starter and add onto it for an infinite supply of it. it matures and makes a great thing to pass onto your children or whatever

I think I used my starter a bit before it was ready
the starter is bubbly and yeasty but it hasn't raised the loaf as much as I'd want

Your bread looks wonderful. I don't have a banetton but do you think I could use a regular bowl for the second rise?

yep. the easiest thing to do if you don't have a banneton is to line a colander with a tightly woven kitchen towel and flour the hell out of it, and then let the dough do the final proof in that. use more flour than you think you'd need (ideally, use a mix of regular and rice flours).

definitely -- i've got two little containers of it sitting in my fridge!

i used my starter after it passed the "float test." from what i've read, if you take a small spoonful of starter and drop it gently into cup of room temp water, if it floats it's ready to use.