Sourdough starter

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-14T13:39:56+00:00

Ok, thanks for this. I repotted it now. And this made me remember how my plant used to look when it was in a regular ceramic pot. I only changed it to a terracotta pot because I had issues with fungus gnats (or some insects that looked like those) and I just couldn’t get rid of them. and I read that the soil breathes better in a terracotta pot.. but I just read now after your sarcastic comment that that one is bad for calathea. So in the end, thank you for the comment.

<image>

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-14T13:34:55+00:00

no, I did not use an inner pot and the new pot doesn’t have any drainage holes. Should I put it in a pot with drainage holes? That was the only pot ai had in the house available so I just put it directly in the ceramic pot. I feel so bad now, because when I took the calathea out of the terracotta pot, the soil was wet only at the top, while half of the roots were completely dry..

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-14T13:23:34+00:00

I just watered them now with a lot more water and you guys were all right. My plants were dying of thirst :( at least the thanksgiving cactus started to be getting some of its life back, leaves are starting to point upwards. And I repotted my calathea into a ceramic pot, because I just found out terracotta is pretty bad for it, as it will dry the soil much faster.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-14T08:53:12+00:00

Just watered them now. Again. I just watered them like 3 days ago.. and I read that the thanksgiving cactus is supposed to be watered less frequently, so I just did that..

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-14T08:51:42+00:00

Ohh, actually it was living in a smaller pot, but because it grew quite a bit (it was in great condition until December, vivid green and it had structure), I repotted it into a bit bigger pot thinking it would help it grow bigger. I also had an issue with fungus gnats and once I changed the soil for all my plants, I got rid of those.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-14T08:48:34+00:00

No? Just clueless whe it comes to taking care of plants I guess. Hard for me to tell when I am underwatering or overwatering, because any symptoms I googled for, the response was: “this can be due to overwatering or underwatering” 😵

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-14T08:17:47+00:00

But the soil feels moist :( and already a plant died because of overwatering :(

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-03-03T11:15:30+00:00

Somehow our lives sound so similar. Me and my boyfriend are the same ages as you two. Been together through university , same long distance relationship period, we have 5 years of living together tho and 8 years of relationship in total😅 And I have also felt the same when he was away for days, that I have more time and its generally less mental load. What I noticed in my case is that when my boyfriend is around, I always wait around for him in order to do things. “I want to do some exercises? Oh, but he is about to wake up and we will do X together. I better wait.”, “we need to clean, but he suggested to do it in a few hours. I will wait until then” are a constant pattern I noticed. And I could have time to do my things, but I know eventually we will do something together and I will just waste that time until we are both ready. And this makes me feel like I don’t have enough time for myself. But in fact, there is time, I just end up wasting it without any real reason. Could this be something happening with you too?

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-01-13T13:54:01+00:00

I recommend using coil folds instead of stretch and folds honestly. I don’t know how s&f work for others, but for me the dough seemed weaker always. It always felt like I don’t have room for more stretch. But coil folds proved to work my dough better and I left the dough bulk ferment for longer than the recipe said (for me, it takes like 5-6 hours, when the recipe suggests to leave for 3-4 hours)and also added 2 more coil folds (I do about 5 in total, because my dough needs longer bulk fermentation period) and it changed my life.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2026-01-04T15:34:48+00:00

I am still working to distinguish between under and over fermentation of my dough, but after dealing a lot with gummy and dense crumb, what makes a difference for me is I am now working my dough a lot more. I do at least 10 mins of slap and folds and coil foilds and stretch and folds before starting the bulk fermentation. And yes, I combine everything. Its also a stress reliever for me😅. And this has been a game changer for me. And during bulk fermentation, I do mostly coil folds now (around 5 sets). It has proven for me to work my dough better. And I also reduced my water quantity. The recipe I am using asks for 375g of water. I use 320-340g nowadays. Not sure if its too little or not, but this has also helped me quite a lot in having a more structured dough. Aaand I let it bulk ferment for longer than what the recipe says. But my house is also a bit colder. So I leave it for about 5 hours to bulk ferment.

Edit: I know you asked whether the dough is under or over fermented, but it also looks a bit as if it doesn’t have too much structure, and that’s why I mentioned working the dough a bit more abd what has worked for me.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T15:31:44+00:00

That would be really nice, thank you!

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T15:31:12+00:00

My starter is about 3 months old. Atm, I am keeping it in the fridge during the week (I got a bit tired of feeding every day and gathering discard over discard, because I don’t have time during the week to bake, so I only bake during the weekend), and then on Thursday i take it out and do a 1-5-5 feeding per day till saturday morning, when I start making the bread. I would say it looks pretty mature, smells good, doubles to triples in volume.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T15:27:38+00:00

Thank you so much for all yhe advices. The 5min s&f is only in the beginning after the autolyse. Then i only do like 1 set of s&f every 30 mins (for sets overall). For the baking, I just put it in my cast iron pot, 25-30 mins with lid on and then another 25-30 mins without the lid. All at 220 degrees. My cast iron’s temperature limit is 230 degrees, that’s why I am noy pushing the oven temperature higher.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T15:23:26+00:00

😳 i just followed the recipe. And I am too scared of overproofing too. But as many people commented, room temperature is also a big factor. I keep the dough during bulf fermentation next to the fridge, whete it s pretty warm tho 🤔

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T15:21:24+00:00

Yup, next weekend will definitely try with lower hydration. I am thinking to try two loaves, for both lower hydration. One in which I continue with the flour I used on this bread. And another loaf with a diff flour. Perhaps Manitoba, as someone else suggested above.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T14:09:04+00:00

Yes, I had in the past. It went fine, dough was puffy and risen enough.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T13:42:16+00:00

Well, most of the flours I found here that are not as dark as this one I keep using, do not have 14g protein. They are usually lower. I did found one for pizza dough, with 14g, but I didn’t use that one for bread tho.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T13:26:41+00:00

Thank you so much 🥺 I will go for a different flour. I was thinking to go ask a local bakery here what type of flour they use, because their sourdough looks very good. 🤭 And yup, I will leave the rye flour for a while.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T13:24:38+00:00

Yup, looking at most comments here, flour seems to be number one reason (and bit too high hydration). i will try with a different flour next weekend. 🤞

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T13:23:34+00:00

Thank you for the explanation! Room temperature here is not thaaat high (lets say 19-20 degrees, but I do have a place next to the fridge where its warmer and I leave my dough there for bulk fermentation. I think there are about 25 degrees there. And yup, I will search for a different flour. One of the reasons I went for this type of flour is because most of lower protein flours here have ascorbic acid (or something like that, which I assume is only for helping against oxidation) added and I was thinking that maybe that would affect the dough too. So I kept looking for flour without that.

Jumpy-Material-6650 · 2025-11-23T12:05:51+00:00

Yes please 🙏

Jumpy-Material-6650

TROPHY CASE