Sam Whitaker · April 13, 2026
For the first two years I baked sourdough, I only baked on weekends. That was the conventional wisdom — start your levain Friday night, mix Saturday morning, bake Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Clean, contained, no pressure. And honestly, it works…
Sam Whitaker · April 12, 2026
For the first two years I baked sourdough seriously, every loaf I cut open looked the same: a tight, uniform crumb that tasted fine but told me nothing had really worked. I was following the right hydration numbers, using the…
Sam Whitaker · April 10, 2026
People ask me all the time whether my starter is “better” because it’s old. My honest answer is: it’s complicated. I started this starter in 2014 from nothing but flour, water, and time. I nursed it through a move, a…
Sam Whitaker · April 9, 2026
I remember the exact moment I realized I had been sabotaging almost every loaf I baked for the better part of a year. I was standing in my kitchen at 11pm, cutting into what was supposed to be a beautifully…
Sam Whitaker · April 8, 2026
My first sourdough loaf came out of the oven looking like a deflated frisbee. It was dense, gummy in the middle, and had a crust so pale it looked like it had never seen heat. I had followed a recipe….
Sam Whitaker · December 22, 2025
Here’s a claim that trips up most people new to sourdough: refrigeration doesn’t pause fermentation, it just changes what kind of fermentation you’re getting. I used to believe the fridge was basically a “hold” button — a place to park dough when life got in the way of baking on schedule. Then one Tuesday night, … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 19, 2025
Does a sunk spoonful of starter mean your fermentation is broken? Nine times out of ten, no — and that’s worth saying plainly before we dive into the weeds. Years back I hovered over my kitchen sink with a small dollop of starter suspended in a glass of water, treating the outcome like it would … Read more
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 · November 21, 2025
The smell hit me before I even saw the jar — something sharp and almost boozy, way past the pleasant tang I’d gotten used to. When I finally looked, the starter had climbed clean over the rim, dried into crusty ridges down the outside of the glass, and left a sticky trail creeping across my … Read more
