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Comment by bgaluszka | Hacker News Reader

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you get sourdough made at some other place after couple of weeks your local culture will take over thus sourdough will loose that other place uniqueness so to speak. But I'm not an expert just something I remember when I was interested in sourdough and pizza making.

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I think that's a feature, not a bug :)

The sourdough that comes from your kitchen is going to be unique to that place. Even moving across town can have a huge difference. It's a built-in thumbprint that makes sure that no one can ever really make grandmas pizza bottoms, or baguettes, quite the same...

You are correct. Your method of keeping the starter will over time select the culture that is best suited for your method of keeping, from available gene pool.

Reminds me of a story I heard of a beer brand (forgot which one) that opened a new factory which was heavily modernised, but decided to take the wooden roof from the old one and install it above the copper kettles in the new location to make sure the environmental bacterial cultures would remain the same to keep their "flavour identity"

Anecdotally, my experience has been that while yeast cultures are durable, you can also get some maladaptive selection going from time to time; eg, if you are too irregular in feeding your starter, you might end up with a slow-growing culture rather than the fast-growing culture you get from feeding your starter twice a day and want for a good rise. Your starter will still be alive, but not as useful until you start feeding it constantly again and get that fast-growing culture established again.

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