Mike, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes this kitchen what it is. Ten days troubleshooting a stubborn starter. Most folks would've dumped Fred down the drain and walked away frustrated. Not @Mike Worley. He went and started a second jar, named him Bill, ran him on pure rye, and turned the whole thing into a side by side experiment the whole room gets to watch. Now he's documenting both, posting updates, and asking everybody to weigh in on who comes out on top. That's not just troubleshooting. That's turning a problem into a lesson the rest of us learn from too. Here's the thing about starters: they test your patience before they ever test your skill. A sluggish starter isn't a failure. It's information. Mike's reading that information out loud so the next person fighting a slow Fred knows they're not alone, and knows what to try. So drop a comment. Team Fred or Team Bill? And tell Mike what you'd do differently. Thank you, Mike. You make this kitchen stronger. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥

I want to step away from bread for a minute and tell you what just happened. Twenty-two days ago, this community picked something up and ran with it. You decided, without my asking, to help get me to Emporia, Kansas, to watch my son Ryan throw javelin at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Here's what you did. 41 of you showed up in 22 days. You made this trip possible. Some of you gave $10. Some of you gave $100. Every one of those donations was a hand on my shoulder saying go be there. And because of you, I will be. I leave Friday afternoon. Ryan throws Saturday, May 23 at noon Central. I want to name you, because grace deserves names. @Angela McKay, @Anita Johnson , @Betsy Carey , @Candy Barnes , @Colleen Vergara Dorney, @Dalton Kendig, @Dave Palmer r, @Deborah Karaban , @Dennis Blevins , @Dianne Givens , @Donna Angelo , @ehsan omaraa, @Jen Dolan , @JoAnn Amato , @john stevens, @Laine Hegness , @Leigh Skowronski @Linda Glantz , @Linda J gregory, @Marilee Berry , @Mary Nunaley , @Matthew Davies, @Michele Nilson , @Michelle Sweeney , @Rhonda Talamo , @Robert Caldas , @Sharon Prahl , @Stacey Avraham , @Teresa Smith, @Tim Norwood, @Tracy Havlik , @Cheryl Odden

It's still bread - I actually wanted to share that I applied some points I've learned from hanging out on the Saturday bakes - letting the flour absorb the water. giving it a good rest between rolling the balls and rolling the tortillas makes a big difference in the ease of actually rolling them out.

🌾 Today's Spotlight goes to @Dianne Givens for baking her first einkorn sourdough using the new recipe and posting it in the Show-Off Feed. 👏🔥 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Here's why this one matters. Einkorn is one of the harder ancient grains for a beginner to handle. ⚠️ Low gluten tolerance ⚠️ Fast fermentation ⚠️ A dough that will not forgive an overworked hand It's the kind of bread that humbles experienced bakers, let alone someone tackling it for the first time. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dianne paid attention. 🥣 She built her starter ⏱️ Watched her levain 📈 Respected the timing 🙌 Trusted the process And the crumb tells the story. Twenty hours after she posted, the thread is still pulling responses from the community. That's what happens when a baker shows real preparation and real discipline. People notice. People learn from it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👏 Dianne, well done. You set the bar high for first einkorn bakes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ To everyone else... 👉 Go take a look. 👉 Ask her questions. 👉 Leave her a note. This is the kind of bake that lifts the whole room. 🧡 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥

I let Vitale sit in the refrigerator for a few weeks. No feedings. No attention. Just neglect. And when I pulled her out, she had a thick layer of hooch sitting right on top. ⚠️ That’s not failure. That’s chemistry doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. I did this on purpose. I wanted to show you what a neglected starter actually looks like, because too many bakers panic when they see hooch and think they’ve killed their starter. You haven’t. She’s hungry, not dead. 🥣 Here’s what I did: • Poured off the hooch• Discarded almost everything in the jar except 30 grams of dregs• Built her back up as a stiff starter with:• 30g starter• 100g water• 200g flour That’s it. No fancy Rescue. No starting from scratch. 👀 And here’s where it gets interesting. I’m running two experiments at once. 1️⃣ First, I’m bringing Vitale back to life so you can see exactly how a neglected starter responds. 2️⃣ Second, once she’s showing signs of life, I’m splitting off a portion into a separate jar and treating it like a brand-new sluggish starter. That one gets fed with pineapple juice, the trick Candy mentioned in our live chat last weekend, to show you how the acid can rescue a starter that just won’t get going. 🧪 Two scenarios. 🫙 One jar of dregs. 🎥 Real footage of what actually happens. Stay with me on this one. I’ll be posting updates as she comes back to life. Perfection is not required. Progress is. ~ Henry ⭐🔥