sourdough starter

Sourdough starter creation, maintenance, and troubleshooting

I Captured Wild Yeast From 5 Singapore Neighborhoods — Here’s How Each Starter Turned Out

· July 27, 2026
I Captured Wild Yeast From 5 Singapore Neighborhoods — Here's How Each Starter Turned Out

A note from Sam: every fermentation experiment I’ve ever run has stayed firmly inside Pacific Northwest weather, so when longtime reader Mei Lin Koh offered up her own wild-yeast terroir project from Singapore, I said yes before she’d even finished the sentence — tropical fermentation runs on a clock I’ve simply never had to learn. … Read more

Sourdough Starter Too Runny or Too Thick: A Hydration Guide That Actually Makes Sense

· January 27, 2026
Sourdough Starter Too Runny or Too Thick: A Hydration Guide That Actually Makes Sense

150% hydration — that’s the real number hiding behind the disaster I’m about to confess to. Picture this: I’d just told my husband that Harold, my starter, had finally “hit his stride,” and about ten seconds later I tipped the jar and watched half its contents slide down the front of my pajamas. The stuff … Read more

Reviving a Dead Starter: How I Brought Mine Back After 4 Months in the Fridge

· January 24, 2026
Reviving a Dead Starter: How I Brought Mine Back After 4 Months in the Fridge

Reaching into the back of the fridge one Sunday afternoon for leftover pasta, my hand landed on a mason jar I didn’t immediately recognize — shoved behind the mustard and a block of cheese that had seen better days, topped with a layer of gray-brown liquid like something out of a ghost story. That was … Read more

Baking Sourdough in a Cold Kitchen: The Winter That Nearly Broke Me (and My Starter)

· January 23, 2026
Baking Sourdough in a Cold Kitchen: The Winter That Nearly Broke Me (and My Starter)

Scroll through enough sourdough forums and you’ll run into two flatly opposite pieces of advice about a stalled starter in winter: one crowd insists you just need to wait it out because sourdough always sorts itself out eventually, and the other tells you to feed more often to force activity. The first one is just … Read more

Sourdough Starter Won’t Rise: My 3-Week Diagnosis Diary (And What Finally Fixed It)

· January 21, 2026
Sourdough Starter Won't Rise: My 3-Week Diagnosis Diary (And What Finally Fixed It)

A brutal cold snap had locked onto my kitchen that January, and by day fourteen it had quietly exposed the real problem. The jar sitting on my counter looked like slightly lumpy paste — no bubbles, no dome, nothing that resembled life. Sourdough starter won’t rise, I typed into Google for what had to be … Read more

Mold vs Kahm Yeast on My Starter: The Panic-Inducing Morning That Taught Me Everything

· January 20, 2026
Mold vs Kahm Yeast on My Starter: The Panic-Inducing Morning That Taught Me Everything

No recipe card, no starter guide, no baking book ever prepares you for the exact moment you lift the lid and discover something growing on your starter that absolutely was not there the day before. They’ll spell out feeding ratios and rise windows down to the hour, but nobody warns you what to do at … Read more

Is Sourdough Hooch Actually a Problem? A Quick FAQ

· January 19, 2026
What Is Hooch? Why Your Starter Separates and Whether You Should Actually Worry

The lid barely cracked open before that sharp, boozy tang hit me — sitting right on top of my starter was a thin layer of grayish liquid I hadn’t seen before, pooled like something had gone wrong overnight. This was a starter I’d been babying for three months, and my brain immediately jumped to worst-case … Read more