With sourdough’s recent rise in internet fame, countless creators have joined in on the craze, raising their own sourdough starter babies and experimenting with new shapes. Along with them has come an overwhelmingly large stream of jargon like ‘proofing’, ‘hydration’, ‘levain’, and ‘hooch’. That can be enough to ward off even the most eager beginner. There’s only so many times you can pause a reel to Google this mystery word.  
 
Before you fall into a state of panic and abandon your starter altogether, consider this your sourdough jargon survival guide. We’ve decoded every word that makes a recipe sound more like an advanced chemistry experiment; Now you can spend less time frantically Googling and more time making bread!  

- Levain: A portion of starter that has been prepared specifically for one bake. It is used up entirely in that batch, instead of saved and grown as a culture. 
- Autolyse: Allowing the flour and water dough to rest before adding other ingredients. This gives the dough time to build a strong, stretchy gluten network with less kneading. 
- Bulk Fermentation: Starting from the second yeast enters your dough, this process involves microbes eating sugars and releasing air (farting essentially) which gets trapped in the gluten network to make the dough light and fluffy.

- Proofing: The final rise before the dough goes into the oven. 
-Hydration: The ratio of water weight to flour weight in a dough, generally shown as a percentage. A higher hydration would result in a wetter, stickier dough. 
- Hooch: A layer of grey-ish liquid that forms at the top of a neglected starter, consisting mostly of alcohol and acids. Usually not a good sign -- feed your starter!

- Banneton: Essentially a fancy basket the dough rests in while proofing. It helps the dough keep its shape. 
- Baker’s Percentage: A way of measuring ingredients as a percentage of the amount of flour in the dough. The formula is ????????????????ℎ???? ???????? ???????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????? × 100 = ????????????????????'???? ????????????????????????????????????????. Because simple grams weren’t complicated enough apparently. 
- Coil folds: A method where the dough is lifted from underneath and allowed to fold over itself.

Perhaps that is the strange magic of sourdough: for something as simple as flour, water and a little wild yeast, it has managed to survive centuries of change. Yet beneath all the TikTok trends and intimidating jargon, the appeal remains much the same. Sourdough asks us to slow down, pay attention and accept that sometimes the best things cannot be rushed.

So, this Sourdough September, forget about getting the perfect loaf on your first try. Feed your starter, get your hands messy, embrace the occasional flat loaf and, most importantly, enjoy the process. After all, sourdough has already waited centuries for its comeback — it can afford to wait a little longer for yours.

So, this Sourdough Season, forget about getting the perfect loaf on your first try. Feed your starter, get your hands messy, embrace the occasional flat loaf, and most importantly, enjoy the process. After all, sourdough has already waited centuries for its comeback—it can afford to wait a little longer for yours.