The last couple of times I baked sourdough bread I eliminated to over night step in fridge. After all the fold and stretch process and letting it sit for the last fold before it goes to sleep before the bake. I just placed the last folded loaf in the dutch oven and let it set till early morning back.

The loaf doesn't have all the scoring and pretty floor decal but the quality of the bread is as good or better.

More ways to skin a cat....

That looks good enough to eat!

I can't even eat a piece of bought bread anymore. Starter water flour a dab of salt and voila!!!

Two reasons for the waiting one it allows the bread to rest and is supposed to help it not be tough, second it may rise a little bit to increase fluffiness. So it may not be necessary, and if it works why argue with what works.

My dough rises the most while in the cold fridge at night. I have always found that interesting. So, I decided to just place it in the dutch, cover it, and be ready to bake in morning. The bread has been so much more softer and has more air pockets and rises about the same height as when in fridge all night. In ten day when I bake again I will use bread pans and divide the dough in half, fold and place in bread pan, covah and let set on counter till morn bake.

I will see how that works out.

Very Smart

Do you all experiment with diff types of flour?

My wife bakes a loaf every week. She also transitioned from a loaf pan to a Lodge Dutch oven . She only uses flour from Sunshine Mills that is supposed to be a Heritage grain. She avoids gluten and this bread works for her.

My wife uses a #14 dutch oven. She tried an eight which I thought she would like being lighter. But she didn't like it. The 14 has legs too which makes it a lot harder to get in and out of the oven. I do not try to tell her how to bake bread. She make crackers out of the discard. Just makes a batch of dough and rolls it out thin and sprinkles some parmesan other spices and salt. Cuts them into squares and bakes them. She uses King Arthur flour.

Flour may be a game changer buy exclusively use bread making flour for sourdough never an all purpose flour and add a dab of rye in each batch.