Bake around your starter, not the other way round

Most published sourdough recipes give you exact times: 'bulk-ferment 5 hours', 'cold-retard overnight'. These work for the recipe author's starter, in the recipe author's kitchen, at the recipe author's altitude. Yours is a different ecosystem. Treat the times as orientation, not orders.

Your starter's peak time. After two weeks of feeds you know it: 'mine peaks at 7-8 hours when the kitchen is around 22°C'. Build your bake backwards from that. Want to bake at noon Saturday? Feed Friday evening at 11pm and the starter will be at peak by 7am Saturday, you mix at 8, bulk fermentation finishes at noon. The recipe times are still useful for order (mix → bulk → shape → proof → bake) but the clock is your starter.

Autumn is when most home bakers think their starter has died. It hasn't - it's just slowed by 30-50% because the kitchen dropped from 23°C to 19°C. The same bake schedule that worked in summer now under-proofs everything. Track ambient temperature in the journal and you'll see the shift week by week. The fix is just longer bulk + earlier feed; the recipe doesn't change.