Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, my son, Ryan Hunter.

🔥 Last week I watched a creator on Instagram walk through her system for tracking bulk fermentation Charts. Graphs. PDFs. Front and back. Three pages deep. 😅 I’m not exaggerating. It looked like a college lab report. 🤝 And look, I respect the effort. I really do. I understand that a certain segment of our community genuinely loves that level of detail. 🧠 I’m a science nerd myself. But I watched it and kept thinking… there has to be a better way. 💡 Because here’s the thing If you really want to understand your bulk fermentation, you're not going to do it by filling in blanks on three sheets of paper while your dough is rising. It’s just not practical. ⏳ By the time you’ve found the right chart, your dough has moved on without you. 👨‍🍳 So I built something. 🧭 I call it The Fermentation Compass. It tracks 9 observable signals from your dough: • temperature• time• percent rise• dome shape• surface bubbles• side bubbles• the wobble test• the windowpane test• smell …and combines them into one clear verdict: 👉 under proofed👉 getting close👉 in the zone👉 pushing it👉 over proofed 🚫 No charts to print🚫 No blanks to fill in You just tell it what you're seeing…and it tells you where you stand. 🎯 It even adjusts for YOUR recipe High hydration? Whole grain? Low leaven percentage? The target ranges shift to match the dough you're actually making, not some generic formula from a textbook. 📊 And there’s a Bake Timeline built in Every 30 to 60 minutes, log your readings. By the end of your bake, you’ve got a full visual record of how your dough got from “not yet” → “let’s go” 🟢🟡🔴 Nine colored dots per check One glance tells the whole story ⚖️ Now, I’ll be the first to say this isn’t for everyone Some of you have been baking long enough that you can read your dough by feel 👉 And that’s the goal But for those of you who want something in between “just guess” and “three-page lab report” This is what I’ve got

Last week I got these mini loaf tins and I’ve been looking for a reason to use them so I cut my babka recipe in half and made mini babka’s. Aren’t they cute?

I've done this loaf before, and I'm still working on doing a better job of it but this time, I decided to double it / and adjust for my stiff starter. And then I thought I'd mix it in my mixer first to help break up the starter in the water first, and then to develop some gluten from the mixer early. (1) I turned my mixer up without a cover while trying to break up the levain. Didn't mean to, splattered all over me and the kitchen! Had to change shirts... (2) So, I did add a bit of water back in thinking I splattered a bunch out. I didn't add much though but the dough is very soupy! I dont' remember it being quite sooo soupy in the past. So maybe my math was wrong in the doubling and adjusting :( but I continued (3) Pulled out of the mixer to try a rectangular casserole dish for some slap and folds to strengthen. But, realize at this point it's just a gloppy mess. I persisted... I've seen various videos of slap and folds of sloppy doughs becoming manageable like magic so I kept going... (3) Dough splatters all over me, the counter, the sides of the casserole. (4) I persisted. Cleaned off my hands, wet them again and kept going and it eventually started to get better. Second change of shirt It's a good thing no one else is home to see this utter mess!! and I didn't take pics of the mess, it was a sight! I transferred to another dish, cleaned the original and back to the original dish to rest. It still looks pretty wet and soupy but it's sooo much better than when it started. It's not sticking to the dish. It's got some defined shape! I will keep you posted how this progresses. Dough is resting now before some coil folds next? or stretch and folds?. I'm hoping this second change of shirts is the last for today! 🤣

Someone in the community mentioned they bought a living sourdough starter and I want to talk about that for a second, because there’s a conversation in the bread world worth having. You’ve seen the marketing. “200-year-old starter.” “Passed down through generations.” “Carl Griffith’s Oregon Trail starter.” Some of it is true. Some of it is romance. And honestly, some of it is just good copywriting. Here’s what’s also true: it doesn’t matter. I sell dehydrated starter to bakers all over the world. It’s my starter, Vitale, and I’m proud of it. But the moment it lands in your kitchen and you feed it for the first time, it starts changing. Your flour. Your water. The wild yeast floating around in your home. The temperature of your kitchen. All of it begins shaping what that starter becomes. After a few weeks of regular feedings it’s already a hybrid. After a few months it’s yours. Period. The science behind this is straightforward. Sourdough starter is a living ecosystem of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. That ecosystem responds to its environment. Feed it your local flour, your tap water, let it breathe your air, and it will reflect all of that. The organisms that thrive in your kitchen are not the same ones that thrived in the kitchen it came from. There are starters with remarkable histories. The Orthodox Church has reportedly maintained starters for centuries. Bakers have passed cultures down through families like heirlooms. That lineage is real and it’s worth honoring. But here’s the thing nobody puts in the marketing copy: even those starters have been continuously changing the entire time. A starter from 1800 fed in your kitchen in 2026 is not the same starter it was in 1800. It never stopped evolving. So if you bought a starter from San Francisco chasing that famous tang, good news. Keep feeding it where you live, bake with local flour, and give it a few months. What you’ll end up with is something that reflects both its history and your environment.