If at first you don't succeed, try and fail again

Well, in short, the sourdough was a disaster. I sort of left it in the fridge for 20 hours and it overproofed and got this terrible crust because I didn't cover it well enough. Again, the flavor was excellent, but the appearance, density and crust were so off-putting that I threw it away.

Onto the next. I decided to go back to basics. My mom bought a kitchen scale for herself (OXO brand, 30 bucks at Target, digital readout, US/metric measurements, 5 lb. limit - it's pretty awesome) so I used that to make a plain, white bread.

465 g white flour
35 g WW
380 g water
10 g salt
5 g yeast

The dough was pretty stiff. It couldn't even really absorb all of the flour, which was surprising, since this is over a 70 percent hydration. I kneaded it in the usual way, let it rise for 3 hours with a fold-and-turn after 90 minutes, and then shaped it and let it proof for 2 and a half hours. It was still too damned dense.

At this point, I'm thinking, come ON, I'm doing everything right! I'm using the right yeast for long fermentation (SAF brand), measuring with a scale, kneading correctly, using good flour, hydrating it enough...man. So next time, I'm going to make absolutely sure that I measure out enough water (maybe I'm mis-measuring?), and let the loaves proof in the fridge overnight. I think I'm also going to try making one big pan loaf rather than two small ones, as I've been doing. Maybe I'm just unsatisfied with the small loaves because they don't leave enough room for a sandwich. Unlikely, though.