First Trial with San Francisco starter # 3

I am experimenting with San Francisco starter # 3 today. The starter is only four days old and the bacteria responsible for producing the flavor are not yet mature, however the yeast is doing well, so I started a preferment last night. In the morning the starter looked like this:

It also smelled terrific, nice and pungent and sour, not the dirty sock syndrome!

I put it back into the mixer and did up the One Night Sponge Sour Recipe. Only I used the preferment instead of the motherdough called for in the recipe. The dough did a bulk ferment in five hours and started crawling out of the bowl! I pushed it down and waited another two hours. Then I shaped loaves.The three larger loaves were all 1 lb 12 oz the smaller loaf was 1 lb 2 oz. The loaves were proofing too quickly so I put half of the loaves in the refrigerator and took them out when I had the other two loaves in the oven baking. I miscalled the proofing though. The first two loaves were underproofed. It is funny but sometimes the whitish cast to the baked bread that you can get with overproofed dough also happens with underproofed dough. Here is the proof:

The second two loaves were proofed just right and came out great.

The loaves are really tasty so far while still warm and I bet the sour will be more pronounced when completely cooled. Here you can see all four loaves. Guess which ones were underproofed?

 I know Nancy Silverton in her book on the Breads of La Brea Bakery talked about perfectly proofed loaves blooming in color and smell etc. If you can catch them at the right moment…there is nothing quite like a sourdough proofed to perfection. Just keep trying. This was a promising firs bake with this starter, I will have another go at it soon.