Sam Whitaker · December 18, 2025
Three winters back, on a Tuesday evening after weeks of half-attention, I popped the lid off my starter jar expecting the usual bubbly greeting. Instead — nothing. No dome, no rise, not a single bubble breaking the surface. Just a slack, disappointing slurry of flour and water giving off a sharp whiff of nail polish … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 17, 2025
Scroll through enough recipe blogs and you’ll run into two completely contradictory pieces of advice on the same topic: one camp swears you need a splash of pineapple juice or a few crushed grapes to “jumpstart” a starter, while another insists plain flour and water is all you’ll ever need. The pineapple-juice crowd is wrong … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 14, 2025
Your gut rebels after eating bread. Bloating hits within an hour. Energy crashes before lunch. Sound familiar? Most people blame gluten or assume bread just doesn’t work for their digestion. That’s often where the conversation ends. However, there’s a legitimate middle ground many haven’t tried: properly fermented sourdough. Over 11 years of baking sourdough at … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 12, 2025
Getting the Basics of Sourdough Scoring Right No recipe card walks you through this part: scoring is what turns an ordinary loaf into something people stop and stare at. It means slicing deliberately into the dough’s skin right before it hits the oven, and those slices aren’t just decoration. They also do a job — … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 10, 2025
Bread Lame, Grignette, or Bare Razor Blade: Which Scoring Tool Is Actually Right for You? The moment that stuck with me was watching a dull blade snag on cold, tacky dough skin instead of gliding through it — a little tear where a clean line should have been, the surface tension bunching up around the … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 8, 2025
The Wild Yeast Story Started Long Before San Francisco Nearly every home baker assumes San Francisco sourdough sits at the center of the whole story — that tangy, foggy-city loaf everyone points to first. That assumption doesn’t hold up. Bakers in Ancient Egypt were likely capturing wild yeast thousands of years before California existed as a place, … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 6, 2025
What’s Actually Happening Between Rye and Sourdough Rye doesn’t act like wheat once it hits a mixing bowl, and pretending otherwise is where a lot of German-style bakes go sideways. The proteins in rye simply won’t knit into the stretchy gluten web that wheat proteins build so easily. Try to push it through with plain … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 5, 2025
Two Breads, Two Different Stories Don’t assume Pain au Levain and sourdough are just two names for the same loaf — mixing them up costs you flavor and consistency you’re not expecting to lose. Both breads lean on wild fermentation, sure, but the path each one takes gets you to a noticeably different crumb, crust, … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 2, 2025
My sister-in-law once held up her phone with a photo of a squashed, wide loaf and asked me point-blank: “Why does this look like a pancake when I followed every step?” Nine times out of ten, that question traces back to one culprit — the proofing basket, or banneton, wasn’t matched to the dough inside … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 1, 2025
Quick Links: Jump to What You Need Starter Condition Sign to Look For Action Salvageable (Dormant) Dark film (hooch) on top Drain dark liquid, proceed with revival Salvageable (Dormant) Sharp acetone or vinegar smell Continue with 1:1:1 feeding cycle Salvageable (Dormant) Flat after time in fridge Warm to room temp, feed every 12 hours Discard … Read more
