Hi Sonia, it does sound like your dough might well be over-fermented if the gluten structure is so poor by the time you go to form your loaf. The rate of fermentation has a lot to do with timing and temperature, so you may find that cutting back on some of your rise times may be helpful. However, typically with sourdough recipes it's important to have at least a few hours of room temperature bulk fermentation prior to refrigeration, so that adequate fermentation can continue to occur. Often a good recipe will solve such difficulties, so you might consider trying our Artisan Sourdough Bread with Stiff Starter recipe (which also calls for a dough-like starter). This recipe calls for 3-4 hours of room temperature bulk fermentation, followed by a shaped rise overnight in the refrigerator, and baking the next day. It's not always necessary for your dough to rise after refrigeration and before baking, so you could experiment with baking straight from the refrigerator and see how this works for you. As long as your baking pot isn't subject to thermal shock, it won't hurt the dough to go straight from the refrigerator to the oven. You might also find the series of blog posts connected to this recipe helpful in refining your sourdough process. 

Other factors that might improve final dough structure: cutting back on time in the refrigerator, using a lower percentage of sourdough starter in the recipe, or using a stronger flour, like bread flour.  

I hope this helps! Let us know how it goes! 

Barb                                             

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