Well worth the waiting

Well I took the advise I found in this site, I ordered a known strain of sourdough from Carl Griffith to see if my starter was up

to snuff. My starter was one that I used from this site, and I thought that it was doing pretty well lots of bubbles doubling in volume,

and it smell pretty good. So I tried it out in a NK recipe that I had. Well it rose but not as high as  I thought it should, but hey it was my first SD loaf with starter. I used my cast iron dutch oven followed the KN directions and after the 30min initial bake, I took off the cover. A little disappointing I didn't get the oven spring i was expecting, Very light crust but I said It will probably brown up by the time it comes up to temp. I use a probe therm when I take off the cover, at this point the temp. was 205 so I let it rise to 210 but the crust never really got that brown, but I said lets see how the crumb is and the taste. So I let it cool and I cut it open it had a nice structure the crust was kind of leathery not crisp and no crackle, the taste was OK not very sour but not bad for my first SD loaf I figured it would get more character as it gets older. Which brings me to the Carl Griffith starter which happened to come in the mail that same day. I mixed the starter with equal parts water and AP flour for 3 days until it was doubling nicely. Stuck it in the fridge overnight and baked a SD loaf the NK way again What a difference nice rise good Browning and very nice crumb, but the best part was the flavor nice tang all over the mouth. So I guess my original starter still needs a little work. Which brings me to my original point if you are in doubt of your starter order one from CG or any other supplier so you'll have something to compare yours to.

Thanks for this great site and information

GRAZ