After trying to make starter from scratch - which was a huge fail - I bought dried starter from Breadtopia along with some high protein bread flour. The result was phenomenal! While it certainly isn’t the prettiest bread, I am very happy with it. The flavor is outstanding! It got a little more “toasty” on the top and bottom than I would like, but not too bad. I used the beginner recipe on the Little Spoon Farm blog. If anyone has any beginner tips and tricks, I’d love to hear them.
That is your first sourdough, that is amazing, really great success. Very nice looking crumb and oven spring.
The one early message that I got when asking for suggestions to help improve my baking was to consider reducing the hydration. You don’t need high hydration to bake excellent sourdough bread. The recipes I was trying to bake were often around 78% hydration, and then my error added on top when the recipe said to hold back water to add in with the salt, I kept forgetting to subtract that from the water at mix. So I ended up with some frustration because my dough was very sticky. Once I got that advice and picked up on my error and aimed lower like 72-74% suddenly my dough was much easier to handle and shape. I suddenly got good oven spring and good ears. Now with some practice I’m starting to be a bit more consistent.
When I bake a new recipe, I generally reduce the hydration by 5% (if it was 80% then I’d decrease to 75%) and I have better success with new recipe when I start with the lower hydration.
You are well on your way with that bake.