The process is awesome, I get addicted to bread these days and the price of bread keep rising. I need to learn baking faster.

Thanks

That looks really awesome and tasty! To new years eve we are baking bread with a coin inside. The one who finds it, is going to have good luck for the year. 
No tooth lost so far :D 

Hi Eric, it's great to watch you spend your day trying something new which is baking. I think it takes experience to make a cake to get a really delicious cake. As a beginner, of course, the results you get are great. Hope you enjoy your day.

I really love the look of the bread which I believe you did a great job in preparing it.

This reminds me of my first loaves! It seemed like I will never bake that perfect loaf, but in the end with loads of failed loaves, one afternoon the start of the journey to that perfect loaf began! Keep faith. Practice. I have baked sourdough bread now for over 5 years and worked in multiple bakeries and after reading countless books on sourdough and watching hours on end of YouTube videos, I want to say I am confident that there are a couple of secrets that no one tells you about baking. Making that perfect loaf of sourdough is actually very easy, but there are some key "road signs" you need to look out for. 

I hope your journey will be nice! 

(P.S., if you allow me to diagnose your bread, please read on, or ignore this if you already know the problem! It sounds like your bread was under-proofed/under-fermented. A very common problem. 

Again, please skip this if you already know or if you do not want to read it! Just a little musing. Most successful sourdough bakers are intimately linked to their sourdough starters. That is, they know how long their starters take to rise and ferment a loaf. More specifically, they know how long their starter takes to completely over ferment. When they know this, they can time their baking. Normal baking with bread yeast is very forgiving, but sourdough is tricky as you only have one shot otherwise you will ferment through the gluten. Sourdough baking then in one sentence (according to me) is *having the knowledge of knowing when your dough has fermented 75% of the way to proof it for 15% and baking it whilst it is 5% under proofed for that nice oven spring. 

Sorry for this wall of a text! Hopefully, you did not read it, and if you did, I hope it made some sense. Enjoy the baking.) 

Oh, this did make me smile!  Sourdough is quite a thing.  [Here](https://fionasfavourites.net/sourdough-mother-starter-recipe/) I describe how I eventually got my own starter.  I need to follow this up with the two sourdough products I bake each week for the market.  Since I actually got it right (perfection is still a goal), we haven't bought commercial bread.  That's more than 2 years now.  The only bread we buy in is from a friend who makes a loaf for us each week.  For the rest, it's what I don't sell at the market.  I have come to the conclusion that home made bread beats the commercial stuff.  Hands down.  Every time.  In every which way.

Perservere.  Mother will eventually cooperate even if she's not tamed.

Oh God, I tried to bake my own (normal) bread a couple of times, but in the end, felt it really wasn't worth it, time-wise. Though you're right, with these rising prices, you never know... Still, despite all the toil (*seven days?!*), yours turned out looking awesome! Hopefully next time, the taste's on par, too.

I had the same thought recently, that I should start making my own bread. I, however, completely forgot about the sourdough starter I had started and it's absolutely hooched itself. 🤣 Treating it more like a pet... that's what I need to do.

Your bread looks fantastic! UFO-shaped, yes, but still. 😁

Thanks for the chuckle Eric! You should have seen my first loaf - it was hard as a rock, and I'm sure I could have used it as a weapon if an intruder dared come in :)
You need to look at the YouTube videos on the channel 'Our Gabled Home' that you introduced me to; her easy method of keeping sourdough starter alive, or making your own from scratch, but also the breadmaking process.
So...my second loaf was also way too dense, but we managed to eat some of it while it was hot, however the rest was soaked in water, broken up & left by the bird bath!
You will get it right, but watch that German lady for good tips.
I now use her method and it works like a charm; although it's not the perfect artisanal sourdough bread, it's delicious and I can use it for toasting and for making sandwiches.
Good luck! 

The price of bread is $8, in our currency it is around 120,000 Rupiah, that's a very expensive amount for me. 😁

😂😂🤣😂😂😂 I read this laughing all through with your choice of words and I am sorry it didn't turn out as you expected but being the first time I would say you did great sir. I have no doubt there would be an improvement for the second time and so on it would get better till you master it. This is still a progress sir and well done.

Oh yeah, this is one of my goals!   It will soon be perfect, just keep going LOL.  I have not yet tried my hand at sourdough, but am still in the devouring youtube video stage hahaa.   It seems to me I recall seeing something about scoring the dough before baking to allow the 'spring' to burst through the slits.   

You are ahead of me by leaps and bounds as I have not yet gathered together my baking utensils but I will get  my starter going this coming week.    I can almost smell your bread baking, my favorite scent in the world .

We learnt how to make bread in the first year of pandemic. We also know making some traditional foods similar to bread. This year the price of bread has doubled in my country. Also considering global food crisis, this knowledge will be useful in the future.