I baked 100 loaves of bread in 30 days and loaf 87 was the one that finally taught me something

Phoenix Cooper · 2026-10-08T20:50:03.180327+00:00

Last month I decided to do a personal challenge and bake 100 loaves in 30 days. It sounded dumb when I wrote it down but I went through with it. Loaf 87 was a basic country sourdough, nothing special, but it finally came out with the crumb I'd been chasing since I started baking 4 years ago. The trick wasn't the starter or the flour or the fancy proofing basket. It was that I stopped messing with the dough during bulk ferment. I had been folding it every 30 minutes like every YouTube video says and the gluten was getting torn up. On loaf 87 I just left it alone for 5 hours and the difference was night and day. Has anyone else found that doing less actually gets you a better loaf, or is that just me finally getting lucky after 86 fails?

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I baked 100 loaves of bread in 30 days and loaf 87 was the one that finally taught me something | Bakers - SMM Buzz