My 11-Year-Old Starter's Secret: Citizen Science Reveals Microbial Diversity

The author participated in a citizen science project, submitting an 11-year-old sourdough starter (Stinkie) for analysis. Results revealed Stinkie's strong similarity to starters from Switzerland, Greece, and Finland. It boasts higher acidity and yeast cell counts than average, but its bacterial profile is overwhelmingly dominated by Lactobacillus brevis, while its yeast is purely Saccharomyces Cerevisiae. This suggests that long-term monoculture, while ensuring consistent results, may limit flavor diversity. The researchers provided a Dough-Pro AI assistant (actually ChatGPT) to help interpret the data.