I've have tried several times over the past couple of months or so to
make genuine sourdough bread but have only met with limited success.
I'm looking for any help and suggestions anyone can offer to overcome
my principle difficulty: insufficient rise, particularly the final
rise.

Let me apoligize in advance for the length of this post. Normally,
I'd keep things brief; however, I want to be sure to provide a fairly
comprehensive overview of what I've done so far. Hopefully, it will
be easier to spot the mistakes I am obviously making. I've also given
references to the recipes I've used, indicating the books and pages
where they appear. I know that many of you have these books so I
thought that would be useful. Since these recipes are rather long and
involved, I thought I'd try this approach rather than making a long
post even longer! g If you need further details, I'd be happy to
provide them.

As the subject line indicates, I am new to sourdough although not to
baking bread. Over the last couple months, I've made two different
starters, both using only flour and water. The first was made using
the "Mild Starter" (levain) recipe found on page 79 of Peter
Reinhart's book, "Crust & Crumb." It was made following the formula
without any variations.

I used this starter to make the pain au levain (basic) recipe found
beginning on page 81 of the same book. Again, I followed the recipe
without significant variation. At stage 8 (final rise), the loafs had
not come near to doubling in size after 4 hours. They had risen a
little, but not much from the point of forming the loaves. I let them
rise for about an hour more and then baked them. There was a fairly
good "push" in the oven and the final loaves were about 4 or 5 inches
high. The oven was a bit hot and there was a small amount of burning
on the crust, but not much. Bottoms were dark but not burned. The
crust was a bit thick but about what I would have expected for a
typical sourdough. The crumb, however, was quite moist, and a little
"gummy." It was very dense. There was no raw dough or flour, just
seemed a bit underbaked. The taste was good and only mildly sour as
expected.

My second starter was made using the Seed Culture recipe and then the
Barm recipe beginning on page 229 of Reinhart's Bread Baker's
Apprentice. I used coarse whole rye to begin the seed culture and
then did the refreshments with KA bread flour. The barm was also made
with KA bread flour and, up until recently, all the refreshments have
been with KA bread flour. During the last week, I switched to
Arrowhead Mills AP. I've been feeding this starter generally twice a
week or a little less frequently for about a month.

This starter seems to be healthy...smells good and shows signs of
activity. I generally refresh half of the old starter, doubling it
with each feeding. Once I tripled it. It usually remains on the
counter after feeding for about 4 or 5 hours until some noticeable
activity starts to happen and then is refrigerated. It's kept in a
clear covered plastic covered "cannister" which is washed out after
removing the starter to a bowl during the feeding process (done in a
stainless steel bowl.) The consistency of the starter I would
describe as like wet bubblegum left in the sun. g

I first used this starter about 3 or 4 weeks ago to make the Basic
Sourdough recipe from page 233 in BBA. This recipe calls for making a
firm starter from the barm and then using 4.5 oz. high-gluten flour.
I used 4 oz. of KA bread flour and .5 oz of wheat gluten (55% protein)
to bring up the total protein level slightly. For the final dough, I
used 20 oz. of KA bread flour and 1 tsp. of gluten. The rest of the
ingredients were as indicated in the recipe.

Once again, I followed the recipe directions to the point of the final
proofing (step 9.) I did retard the loaves overnight as suggested and
then let them rise the next morning out of the refrigerator for about
4 hours. There was no noticeable rise. I baked them anyway.

The results were disappointing. There was very little rise in the
oven and the loaves were dense and had a very thick crust. The taste
was good but the mouthfeel was not as it was much too dense.

My third attempt was a disaster and I'm pretty sure I know at least
one of the reasons why. I'll describe what I did so you can either
confirm my suspicions and/or let me know what other mistakes I made.
g The recipe comes from The VIllage Baker by Joe Ortiz. It's the
one for Pain de Campagne found beginning on page 82 of that book.

The first mistake I think I made was right from the beginning. I
didn't make either the chef or do the first refreshment. Instead, I
started with second refreshment using my starter that had been
refreshed a few hours before. I then followed the rest of the recipe
pretty much as is up through the shaping of the loaves. The final
rise was supposed to take 10 hours. After 10 hours, there was no
visable rise at all. The dough had become slightly more slack but not
much else. I let it rise for about 6 more hours which is where I
think I made the next mistake. There was only slight rise and I went
ahead and baked the loaves. They came out almost like bricks...very
hard, dense and heavy. The taste was ok, but generally these were
doorstops! They got thrown away.

Before attempting another full blown sourdough recipe, I decided to
try out the New York Deli Rye recipe from BBA, page 236. This recipe
uses a rye sponge made using the sourdough starter (barm) but then
uses instant yeast in the final dough. This recipe came out perfectly
and produced two large and very tasty loaves of bread.

Finally, yesterday, I tried once more to make a straight sourdough
recipe. This time I attempted the San Francisco Sourdough from page
190 in The Village Baker. This time, however, I carefully followed
the recipe throughout up to the final proof. The only modification
was that I used about 1/8 cup less water in both the second
refreshment and in the dough as the dough seemed far too moist and
slack. Another point I need to make is that all the flour and water
were measured by volume and not by weight...I usually measure strictly
by weight which is what I did in all my previous attempts.

This recipe calls for a two stage proofing (before and after shaping)
which, according to the instructions is supposed to take approximately
10 hours or so for both stages. The commentary in the recipe suggests
that you split the time as seems appropriate depending on how the
dough is reacting. For me, the first stage was about 7.5 hours by
which time the dough had rised noticeably, if not quite doubled. It
was a hot day here in LA yesterday and the temperature in my kitchen
was in the high 80's to around 90f. After shaping the loaves and
placing them in bannetons to rise, I loosely covered them with plastic
wrap and then a kitchen towel. I also followed the hint to put a
small ball of dough in a mason jar full of water to help gauge when to
bake the loaves. The temperature in the kitchen at this point was
around 75f.

After fours hours, there was no visable rise and the test dough was
still at the bottom of the jar of water. After 2 more hours, there
was only the slightest hint of a rise along with some slackening of
the dough and the test ball remained at the bottom of the jar of
water. At this point, it was about 2 am and I decided to go to bed.
The temperature overnight never got below 70f.

This morning, around 8 am, I got up. The test ball of dough had begun
to liquify and was still mostly on the bottom of the jar. The loaves
had slackened a bit more but hadn't risen much if any. I heated the
oven as directed by the recipe, placed the loaves on a dusted peel,
glazed them with egg white wash, slashed them, and, after spraying
water several times in the hot oven, baked the loaves on a baking
stone in the lower 1/3rd of the oven for 45 minutes.

During the baking, the loaves spread out a bit and came out of the
oven looking more like ciabatti than round loaves. They were about
the thickness of ciabatti, too...about 3 inches high, maybe a bit
less. After cooling, I tasted the loaves. The taste is very sour and
very authentic to what I've had before as SF sourdough, maybe even a
bit more sour than usual. Given the extended proofing time, this is
what I'd expect. The crust also seems to be as it should; however,
the crumb is, once again, too dense and a bit too moist.

A few final points. I do use an oven thermometer. My oven is gas,
but not convection. I try to preheat the oven for around an hour when
I'm using the stone, which is what was used for all of these sourdough
attempts (except the NY Deli Onion Rye.) As noted, I live in Los
Angeles (nearly at sea level) and, with the exception of the final
recipe from yesterday and today, all of the prep and risings have been
done at temps between 70f and 75f. Finally, I've been lurking on
r.f.s. for a couple of months and have read all the faqs and visited
several websites mentioned in posts several of which have been very
useful.

OK, now I need your help to correct whatever mistakes I've obviously
been making. I really want to improve and start making better loaves.
I know I have a lot to learn and am looking forward to all comments
and suggestions for which I thank you in advance!