FINALLY! Oven spring!

I am just ecstatic. I never thought baking bread would be such a roller coaster ride. As some of you may remember, I have had a heck of a time trying to achieve oven spring with my sourdough bread. See this and this thread if interested.

With the direct help of the fine people who offered advice and/or suggestions on here, and many others who have shared their knowledge in past threads I uncovered with the search, I have FINALLY baked a loaf of bread that I am proud of. Another big help, has been the very detailed videos put out by Tom of "The Sourdough Journey". The wealth of information he shares has been invaluable to me. Two things in particular: 1) The activity curve of bulk fermentation and 2) The importance of understanding starter feeding ratios. Check out his videos, there is ton of information on his channel.

I have been trying to make this recipe since I started sourdough in October. For this last loaf, I changed two things. I spent a week carefully feeding my starter to build up its strength through 1:2:2, 1:3:3 and 1:5:5 feedings with 10% rye, 90% bread flour. Time became noticeably shorter and shorter. I also wanted to do a lot 1:5:5 feedings to eliminate any thiols if they were present. (I cannot confirm if I had any before, but something was happening to my gluten structure.) The starter now LOOKS different in the jar, it makes big pronounced bubbles on the jar walls that remain well after the starter starts to collapse down. Before, they would disappear quickly after it has peaked. I also made sure never to allow the starter to drop all the way back down, ensuring to always feed the starter soon after the dome has started to drop.

The second thing I changed, was dropping the water in the recipe by 50g. I had tried this before and still got poor results, so I'm not sure I can attribute the oven spring / dough strength to this. I will find out next time, when I try the same recipe with the correct hydration. 

But I have to say, the dough felt completely different, right from the get go. By the time the dough had reached 30% size increase, it felt puffy and easy to handle. So again, I'm thinking it has more to do with what the starter is doing to the dough rather than simply a lower hydration. But of course, I could be wrong. 

Also, using the spice jar trick to monitor bulk fermentation has helped tremendously. It's impossible for me to gauge 30-40% by eye in a bowl. But in the spice jar, it's clear as day. 

Anyways, when I opened the lid of the dutch oven this morning, my eyes popped out of my head. The result is a dramatic improvement from basically every sourdough attempt I've made prior. I'm very happy. Now I need to work on my shaping, because it kind of looks like a large pig in a blanket. :D

Thank you all for helping me along this journey.