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Not sure how directly related this is, but I used to love making pizza from scratch as a young-ish dude.

Now, it's almost impossible to completely screw up pizza under almost any coicumstances, but I've learned over the years that: 1) preparing / proofing the dough (as long as necessary) is mission critical, and 2) creating an oven-situation which transfers heat as rapidly possible is... also mission critical, haha.

This means that some people, due to sheer diligence and careful prep, can produce unbelievably delicious, oven-brick-style pizzas in their humble little kitchens!

A quick warning for people interested: do not make a sourdough starter unless you intend to bake bread at least once a week. A sourdough starter is basically a pet that eats flour every day. If you don’t bake bread regularly then you’re going to be wasting tons of flour feeding this thing that you don’t even use!

I made that mistake and wasted a ton of flour before finally giving up because I really didn’t have the time for it. It’s not just about using some starter to mix a dough and then letting it rise and then bake. You gotta do bulk rise, stretch and fold, proof, shape, and bake. The timing can vary specific to your starter, the temperature of the dough/room, the dough hydration, and more. This means monitoring the rise and proof to make sure you don’t under/over rise. It takes a lot of practice. It’s a legit hobby to learn how to bake really good bread.

If you want to skip the awful smelling phase, use some citrus for the first few days. Pineapple juice works, recently did one with orange juice. Gets the ph low enough so lactobacillus can thrive. Gave it an extra week to build some strength before baking and yeah, works great.

I just did equal mass of juice and flour, prefer 100% rye or whole wheat to start, 50g each, add more ap flour after it's established.

If your starter gets mouldy on top during getting this going, stir every couple of hours during the 12h waits