I have made nearly every mistake according that article, at yet my sour dough tastes amazing.
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I was going to make another attempt at sourdough this weekend, and my wife suggested “why don’t I make a dabo first?”
She didn’t use a measuring cup (or the scale) but estimates she used 1 or 2 cups more flour than I did, and more whole wheat than white. (It was the same whole wheat flour that I used, and couldn’t remember how old it was.) She used about half a cup of the starter I’d made – actually, not even starter, but the discard we didn’t want to throw away. Didn’t feed it; didn’t wait for its temperature to come up from being in the fridge. Threw in a little cardamom oops, coriander and something similar to (but not the same as) black pepper, whose name I forget.
We put it in when the oven reached 350F so, if nothing else, I wasn’t putting the (cold)* Dutch oven straight into an even hotter oven. Cranked it up to 450F and let it bake about 40 minutes with the lid on, and maybe another 10 with it off (I think I forgot to dial back the heat after that).
Here’s the result:
(Tape dispenser for scale)
…and here’s mine again for comparison:
Well, so much for doing it “right”! 
(If it’s still not clear from the photos, the dabo’s at least twice as high as the sourdough)
*The dough probably didn’t rise for 9 or 10 hours, and she put it right into the cold Dutch oven to finish proofing (and that wasn’t very long). She was afraid it would deflate if she dropped it into a pre-heated Dutch oven. I told her that, from what I’d read, if the dough is all right that shouldn’t matter and it will rise up again, anyway.
That might be why we had some trouble getting it out of the pot. (Or – maybe not?) It stuck to the sides and bottom a bit, whereas my loaf more or less came right out. But I got this one out without most of it coming apart (it is sort of cleaving between the top and the bottom).
She said that normally one would line the pot with banana leaves first, but we didn’t have any handy (they’re available frozen). They’d serve the same purpose as parchment paper, but we’d have to cut the latter up into little strips to better conform to the shape of the pot. Anyway, we didn’t use banana leaves nor parchment.
It’s not a sourdough (in the San Franciscan sense), in looks or in texture, by any stretch and it’s not supposed to be:
But it does have a sour flavor from the starter.
Again (like mine), it was pretty brown on the bottom. I forgot to try putting a cookie sheet underneath the pot.
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You can sprinkle all sorts of things in the bottom of the pan to keep the dough from sticking: semolina, cornmeal, rice flour, wheat bran, etc.
And, of course, you can grease the pan, since you’re starting with it cold.
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I’d heard good things about rice flour in that regard (I think the Breadtopia recipe used it). I figured greasing the pan might produce a lot of smoke.
No, I’ve never had a problem with smoking from a light coat of any high-heat oil.
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With no-knead bread I was getting a lot of sticking even with a generous coating of oil in the Dutch oven. My technique now is to let the dough proof on parchment paper, then lift the whole thing and drop it into the 450F Dutch oven.
Tip: crumple the parchment into a ball and then smooth it out. It won’t tend to curl up then, and conforms better to whatever pan you are using.
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We started using rice flour as casting flour after Jon Favreau recommended it on his Chef Show (where he was teaching Sam Raimi to make sour dough).
It works great. It doesn’t seem to soak up liquid from the dough, and thus become sticky like with semolina or coarse whole wheat. No matter how long you let it sit. But it doesn’t stay gritty the way corn meal does.
It just does it’s job then disappears entirely once you bake. I was a little shocked it worked that well.
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Somebody has posted about a similar comic or tweet, but I didn’t find it, maybe it it was in another thread.
But, I hope this is not true, because if it is, our new overlords will punish me for all abuse and mistreatment I have been subjecting my starter.
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This could have been my best effort yet (fourth attempt, I think) but we stopped too early – needed another 10 minutes or so. The newer discussion thread had since closed but this was my second time using the Breadwerx.com recipe. Still can’t roll the thing into a ball like the guy in the video does.
I used a Pyrex-type casserole dish, with a lid, instead of the Dutch oven and it was just big enough to hold the sourdough. I think the smaller size and shape helped the end result (other than not baking it long enough). We’ve got dueling bakers; my better half is making a dabo again (see upthread) and commandeered the Dutch oven. It’s ready to go in this photo:
P.S. Thx @teknocholer now I see it was you who mentioned crumpling up the parchment first.
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@teknocholer - I tried the parchment and it worked!
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Yay! Good-looking loaf. 
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Que bonito! Beautiful!
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I’ve tried several different sourdough recipes, and this one, by far, is the best most satisfying result. It takes awhile to make – you start it the day before – and it requires some yeast, but the loaves it makes rose the most, and the crust gets better as the loaves sit for a couple of days.
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I think I might have created a monster. My father-in-law appears almost addicted to the sourdough I’ve been baking. To fully get the picture, my father-in-law is a slight 70 year old Chinese man. He has a very reserved manner, is an accounting professor. A kind and generous man who doesn’t speak much and never wants to put anyone out. He tried to argue with me about doing his grocery shopping this crisis because I am not his servant, I told him I was doing to minimise exposure (and I don’t want him subjected to racial attacks). Anyway, he has gone from politely asking if he can have a slice of the bread to telling me that the bread is almost gone and it’s time for me to make another one. He also blames my husband (his son) for eating all the bread. We all know it’s him. Cheeky bugger.
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While you’re waiting on that bread in the oven:
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It’s been two weeks or so since I found some flour, (organic bob’s red mill unbleached) and my low-volume starter has finally started to bubble. (I checked it last week and it was super-sour even if mostly flat)
So I didn’t discard yesterday and fed it and baked a half batch of crackers and wow. They do not sell crackers like this.
Now I really want to get my hands on some whole wheat and see if I can improve my ritual breakfast of peanut butter toast. Meanwhile I hope to be on my first white loaf by next weekend at the latest.
One last non-loaf update. 25 days of unbleached all purpose, and only 5 days into the whole wheat.
AP is finally smelling yeasty and delicious. (and takes less than overnight at 70deg to peak) WW is already basically the same. Can’t decide if I’m up for trying two loaves this weekend. Looks like the 1/2c containers will work for this volume, which has been really great/manageable to work with. (20g ea starter/flour/water) At this rate I’m going to have a whole shelf dedicated to starters and containers for building them.
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