First SD loaf - some disappointment

My first suspect would be the 5 hour proof.  Did you do a finger poke test at any point?  I suspect your loaf might have been overproofed.  I also suspect you lost any chance for oven spring with a cold oven start.  The recipe recommends heating the cooking vessel before depositing the dough into the cavity.

Admittedly, I'm very new to baking in general and sourdough in particular, but I have consistently failed to produce anything but a massive hockey puck when trying a sourdough version of the no-knead bread (both the version you posted and the one on breadtopia.com). Now that I can make a reasonably good "sorta-knead" sourdough loaf, I don't especially care that I wasn't able to get the no-knead to work with sourdough (though it IS awesome with commercial yeast).

I've been perfecting my own sourdough no-knead bread for months and am happy to report consistently good results at last! Believe me, it didn't happen overnight.

 I adapted a combination of Jim Lahey's method and the America's Test Kitchen "almost no-knead" method. I'll share my recipe here, but I think like everything else, you have to find what works best for you. Keep trying! It is so worth it!  I had to learn to recognize how things were supposed to look because I'd never worked with sourdough before.  That was the key for me.  Then I just experimented with stuff.  Each failure taught me something.

1 cup very active starter (I measure this by volume)

330 grams white bread flour

110 grams whole wheat flour

10 ounces of water (don't add another drop.)

1 TBS kosher salt (this is to taste)

Mix thoroughly until all the liquid is completely absorbed...no flour left on the bottom of the bowl.  Let sit in covered bowl anywhere from 8 to 18 hours.  (Mine usually starts to rise in about 2 hours, but I wait about 12 to 14 hours before shaping.)

After the intitial rise, the dough will be puffy, full of holes and somewhat sticky, but easy to handle.

I scrape the dough onto floured board and knead for 10 or 15 turns.  {This will make all the difference in the rise.}  I shape the dough ball and then place it in a round skillet that has been lined with oiled parchment paper.  I cover it with kitchen towel.

I let it rise anywhere from 2 to 4 hours before baking. Once I had to wait 5 hours.  It depends on the weather, et. al. (It will spring back when you poke a finger in it.  That's when you know it's ready.)

I pre-heat covered Dutch oven 30 minutes at 500F before baking.  When it's ready, I slash the top, drop the risen dough (parchment and all) into the heated dutch oven. Cover and bake 30 min (lowered to  425 F)

Baking depends on oven, but mine takes 30 min covered and about 22 min uncovered.  Internal temperature is 212F.

I love seeing all the breads you folks are making. Thanks for the tips and insights. It sure helps. Dave

After reading your initial post, I decided to try again to make a worthy loaf using only my wild yeast sourdough starter; no other yeast at any point.

My wild yeast starter is 100% hydration; I wanted to make a single one pound loaf.

I first fed the starter, allowed it to double at room temp., the refrigerated it.

Next day:

150 grams 100% hydrated starter

204 grams bread flour

111 grams tepid water

5 grams salt

(Finished dough hydration approx. 67%)

Put all ingredients in stand mixer, mixed with paddle until fully combined, kneaded with dough hook on medium/low speed for ten minutes.

Placed into lightly oiled bowl

Use bowl scraper to raise and fold up and over itself at 90 degree angles, four folds each cycle for two cycles.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 24 hours.

Remove from refrigerator and allow to rest at room temp. for 4 hours or until 70% to 100% rise occurs.

Stretch/fold the dough once more, using four cycles.

Set aside to proof (dough will be quite sticky, almost fluid)

Place Dutch oven (or similar vessel with cover) into range oven and preheat to 450 degrees.

When oven reaches temperature, uncover the Dutch oven, drop the dough into the vessel, cover and bake for 15 minutes.

Uncover and continue baking an additional 20 minutes until golden brown and internal temperature reaches 195 - 200 degrees.

Place on cooling rack for one hour.  Slice and serve. 

Comments:

Perhaps I should have slashed it, but the dough was so slack that I decided to try it without that step.

(Click on thumbnails for larger view)

We've been baking between 12 and 16 loaves of no knead SD a week lately, and had a fair number of things go wrong, but have really hit the stride lately. I see a couple things above that are right on the money, so I'll just reiterate them.

1. You are probably over proofing. From making breads with commercial yeast, I was used to the shaped loaves more or less doubling during the proof. This doesn't happen with SD. The first batches I made, I was letting proof too long, and they were flat, lifeless, and not very brown. We've cut the proof to about 3 hours, and that is plenty. They don't grow much during the proof but have lots of spring.

2. You should preheat the oven and the baker. What gives oven spring is that fast shock of heat right away where the dough springs up before yeast die and the crust hardens. We preheat the oven for over an hour before the first loaves go in, and do the water in cast iron bit to steam. You can use a baker instead, but it needs to be hot too, or it is going to act more as insulation.

3. That is a really really small quantity of starter. I don't have a ton of experience with other recipies (I have had good results with the first one I tried and am sticking to it until farmers' market season is over), but to make two loaves my recepie calls for 2 oz of mother(it isabout 67% hydration, but I think that is beside the point), which is then built into about 15 oz of a starter which ferments about 8 hours, which is then built into about 3 lbs of dough. Part of your problem may be that you just don't have enough microbe action happening.