Sourdough Starter Rescue
For the home baker whose sourdough starter is on day 7, is not rising, smells like nail polish remover, or just produced a brick instead of a loaf. Tell the tool days since last feed, days since created, flour type, feeding ratio, ambient kitchen temperature, water type, container type, visible symptoms (hooch layer, bubble pattern, smell, mold), and whether it has risen before. One structured pass returns a rescue card: ranked diagnoses (false rise, lag phase, overfed, underfed, hooch and hungry, too cold, chlorinated water, contaminated, dead) with plain-English explanations, the exact next three feeds in grams and ratios with timing, a pivot rule for feed 3, and a bake-day float-test go/no-go with pass criteria. Hard refusals fire for fuzzy or pink or orange or blue or green mold (discard the starter and container), gluten-free flours (route to a GF guide), and non-wheat-non-rye flours.