Sam Whitaker

Sam Whitaker has been baking sourdough for over a decade from a home kitchen in the Pacific Northwest. Sam's four-year-old starter, Harold, is the foundation for every recipe and troubleshooting guide on Sourdough Rising — no commercial ovens or professional training, just real bread tested over and over until it works.

5 Common Beginner Pitfalls When Choosing Your Sourdough Starter (And How to Avoid Them)

· November 17, 2025
5 Common Beginner Pitfalls When Choosing Your Sourdough Starter (And How to Avoid Them)

Pick the wrong path for your very first starter and you can burn two weeks feeding a jar of flour paste that was never going to wake up. That’s the real cost here — sourdough itself isn’t the hard part; it’s that most guides online are written for people who already know what “normal” looks … Read more

There’s Something About The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

· November 15, 2025
There's Something About The Bread Baker's Apprentice

There’s a photo sitting on my counter right now: a crumb shot from a recent bake next to a flatter, tighter loaf from years back, and side by side they tell the whole story of how far eleven years behind a mixing bowl (plus three years running a small home bakery) have actually taken me. … Read more

There’s Something About Tartine Bread

· November 14, 2025
There's Something About Tartine Bread

Tartine Bread isn’t just a cookbook. It’s a philosophy that quietly rewires how you think about fermentation, hydration, and what “done” actually means. Chad Robertson’s masterpiece landed on my counter eleven years ago when I was still treating sourdough like a finicky science experiment. What struck me wasn’t the gorgeous photographs or the detailed hydration … Read more

There’s Something About Starter Sourdough

· November 13, 2025
There's Something About Starter Sourdough

Most sourdough bakers overthink their starter. They fret over ratios, stare at fermentation windows, and obsess over every bubble. What they’re missing is simpler: your starter doesn’t need perfection. It needs consistency. After 11 years of baking and three years running a home microbakery, I’ve learned that starter sourdough—bread made with your own cultivated culture—teaches … Read more

There’s Something About Flour Water Salt Yeast

· November 11, 2025
There's Something About Flour Water Salt Yeast

68% hydration used to intimidate me — that’s the number attached to my first real attempt at an open-crumb loaf, and it’s what pushed me past guesswork into actual technique over the years that followed. I’ve spent that time hunting through cookbooks, testing methods in my own kitchen with whatever gear I owned, and chasing … Read more