Six months of sourdough
I kept a starter alive for half a year, and the loaves only became predictable once I stopped improvising. Weighing everything, flour and water and salt, removed half of the variation.
The other half was temperature. A dough at 24°C and a dough at 21°C are two different recipes. I now write down the room temperature next to every bake and adjust the bulk ferment by the clock, not by feel.
The notebook is the real tool. Twenty entries in, the pattern was obvious: long, cool ferments and a slightly lower hydration than the internet recommends for my flour.