I'm a total noob at this. My first time making a regular loaf of sandwich bread was earlier this year. Now I'm attempting sourdough. This is the tallest loaf I've made, so I'm happy about that. Long way to go before I would share this in person, though. Judge away!
Honestly, it looks fine. The real question is, how does it taste?
Thanks! Taste is just ok. Some of the uglier/flatter ones before this tasted more sour doughey, but I'm not sure why.
The sourness that you taste in store-bought sour bread is usually from some type of acidic acid that they add to it. Baking sourdough at home and getting that sour taste is more or less like playing the lottery. To get that sour flavor, you need to have consistently specific temperatures in your kitchen, in your oven, etc. It’s not easy to do. I stopped worrying about that long ago. As long as the bread taste good, that’s all that really matters.
That's interesting, and makes sense. The temperature in my poorly insulated kitchen has been all over the place the past few weeks since the most recent and tasty loaf.
It definitely still tastes better than the so-called sandwich bread I used to buy from the store.