Hello everyone! I would love some feedback on my first loaf. For my first try, I feel like I did a decent job! I feel like it might be a bit dense. However it still tasted great! Any and all tips are greatly appreciated.

It’s also worth noting, I actually made this recipe with cup measurements instead of grams because I did not have a scale. I do now, so next time I will most likely attempt to make the bread with grams.

Here’s the recipe I used (I’ve watch many videos and decided to improvise based on what I’ve seen):

- 1 1/4 cups of filtered water
- 1 cup active starter
- 3 cups all purpose flour (I used King Arthur brand)
- 1/2 tbsp salt

1. The night before baking, feed sourdough starter with all purpose flour and filtered water.

2. The next morning, add 1 1/4 cups of water and 1 cup active starter into a glass bowl. Mix together until it reaches a milky consistency.

3. Add 3 cups of all purpose flour and 1/2 tbsp of salt and mix until it reaches a shaggy consistency.

4. Cover the bowl with a towel and let the dough sit for 1 hour.

5. Start with one set of stretch and folds, then cover the bowl with a towel for 30 minutes. This should be repeated 4 times*
* should be noted that when I did this a 4th time, the dough was pretty stiff and I probably did not need to do the last set but I still did it anyways.

6. After last set of stretch and folds, let the dough sit on the counter for 10 hours with towel covering it.

7. On a flour covered counter, stretch out the dough, fold and do push and pulls until it reaches the desired shape.

8. Flour a banneton basket and put dough in upside down.

9. Cover banneton with a towel and let it sit on counter for 1 hour.

10. After an hour, place banneton in the fridge overnight.*
*for me, it stayed in the fridge for almost 24hours.

11. The next day, preheat the oven to 455 degrees. Place the dutch oven inside the oven while preheating.

12. Take the dough out of the banneton and place it on flour covered parchment paper. If needed, add flour on top of the dough*
*mine already had a lot of flour already so i didn’t put any more on.

13. Score the sourdough

14. When oven finishes preheating, place the dough with parchment paper in the dutch oven. Underneath the parchment paper, add a couple of ice cubes. Place cover on top of dutch oven and put it in the oven. Let it bake for 30 minutes.

13. Take the lid off the dutch oven and let the bread bake for an additional 15 minutes.

14. Take the bread and parchment paper out of the dutch oven. Let it sit in the oven for 5 more minutes.

15. Let the bread sit on the counter for a minimum on 1 hour*
*I waited a whole day to cut into mine!

Feedback for my first loaf!