r/SourdoughStarter

It's day 6 it's no longer acidic it smells like an old cloth and there hasn't been any difference since day 4 is it ruined or is this normal

I had left my starter on the bench and forgot to feed her and I went to do that this morning but she looks like this and smells pretty tangy :( Is that mould or oxidation? I can’t tell if it’s “fluffy” or not?

My starter has been in my fridge for months probably but can’t tell if this is mold or just a greyish film. There’s no hooch? So it’s kind of dry idk whether to toss or not since it’s not super obvious it’s mold to me? But what do I know

Hi!! So my starter is about 18 days old. For background I’ve been using AP flour and whole wheat flour. I’ve also purchased a warming plate I keep on 76 because my husband tries to kill Vincent VanDough and had the kitchen at 64 degrees. I’ve been discarding daily and feeding at 25g starter/25 ap flour/5g whole wheat/25 water. I found mine was VERY watery initially thus the extra flour and the consistency has been great.

I honestly just want to know how I’m doing. I had a huge false rise day 3 (as expected) then nothing (and I mean NOTHIN) until about day 14. I’ve been super consistent but I still don’t really think he’s doubling. I think he’s coming close but I’d love some other opinions.

First photo is this morning at 5:30am. Second is 11:30 am. He was fed last night at 9:30. I’d say he peaked right around noon taking a whopping 14-15 hours. Is that behind? Anything I can or should do better to try to make it go quicker/more efficient? I don’t want to rush it but also don’t want to lengthen the process. Thanks in advance!

I started my starter 3 days ago. It was hot and humid yesterday and I don't have AC. She doubled in size and I thought everything was good. But now she looks like this and the hooch is looking orange. Do I start over?

Hey friends!
I’ve been baking sourdough for about 6-7 months now and so far I’ve been having a blast.

However, I have neglected my starter that’s been on my counter, for roughly a week.
Is it just dry on top or is it infected?

I have discard in the fridge, so all hope is not lost, but I’m still a newbie and I can’t tell if this is orange/pink mold or just dry!

It doesn’t smell bad, just like crappy beer lol.
Thanks in advance!!

I have this 30-day old starter, raised from five-roses unbleached all-purpose. First 20 days I fed with 1:1:1, it capped at 20% rise and I switched to 1:2:2. Now notice the acetone smell is gone, and it reaches 50% rise occasionally.

This morning, I noticed a red dot on the glass, I thought it was the pink disease. But after investigating, it was a broken round glass chip inside the lid. There might be some minerals in the glass voids reacting to the sourdough and causing a red mark (I didn't take a picture).

I then took 20g of sourdough to a new jar and continued feeding. I cleaned the old jar and noticed the big chip torn off. Now I am afraid of glass chips in my sourdough. I threw away all discards I had been collecting, but the active sourdough might still be contaminated by the shards.

Perhaps if I keep feeding with new jars, there will be enough dilution to remove the shards?

Edit: To give more context, I think the jar I used was very low-quality with small air bubble pockets in the glass. The sourdough got into the air pockets and broke the thin glass off. The image shows how much glass was chipped off after I scrape off the sourdough and clean the jar.

Can anyone please help identify the white bits in my starter? Is it OK If I just feed it?

Hello! This is my first time making a starter, I've been following a video on how to start/feed but she looks different than what's shown in the video. From my understanding, the starter isn't supposed to have risen so much yet and there's supposed to be a layer of hooch on the top, but she's bubbly and all the liquid is on the bottom. When making it I used 50g of whole wheat flour, 50g of all purpose, and 150g of water. When feeding today I did 50g whole wheat, 50g all purpose, and 115g of water. Pictures were taken 6 hours after feeding. Is this normal or are my ratios off? Please and thank you in advance!

On day 26 and I can only get my starter to rise a small amount, some days almost double and some days only this amount after 10 hours.

To feed I’m using 1/4 cup starter, 1/4 cup filtered water, and 1/2 cup King Arthur bread flour every 24 hours.

Does it just need more time? Any pointers appreciated, thanks!

I started 16 days ago and have been experimenting with different ratios, so far the most successful seems to be 1:2:1 have been doing for the last 3 days, it looked so awesome yesterday and today but here’s the thing.. as soon as I mix I loose all the texture and quickly turn into a super smooth pancake batter that doesn’t even try to float, I know it supposed to loose some air bubbles when you mix but mine does as soon as I gently mix for 5 secs. I thought it was because the 1:1:1 too much water but switched to 1:2:1 and looked so promising but then it’s a smooth paste! Am I missing something? If I bake with it will it turn out bad?

I have been looking at several recipes on YouTube and almost everyone's recipe says we should have a mature and usable starter by day 5-7 (roughly speaking).

But scanning across multiple posts in this sub reddit seems to suggest that 1 week is not nearly enough and it could take a month to sometimes several months to mature.

I am confused at this discrepancy. What am I missing?

YouTube video I was looking for reference: https://youtu.be/0OeCjbXlPoA

New to the Sourdough community! I started by following The Clever Carrots recipe (will link below).
I’m on Day 6 now and saw that initial false rise on day 2-3, but since then nothing. Lots of bubbles on top but I’m also finding that there has been lots of hooch (shown) building up daily, which I have just been mixing in.
I started with wholewheat flour and have been feeding with strong white flour since, as per the recipe. After each feed, I place in the oven with the light on for at least an hour before either leaving it in there or placing on the kitchen counter (house is not cold, I’d say around 20*c/68*f on average).

My question is - Does this look normal? I know it’s VERY early in the process, but is the level of hooch normal or should I be increasing flour ratio or how often I feed the starter? (Currently x1 feed daily in the morning).
Additionally, the smell has become more sweet, though today it has quite a vinegar tang to it.
Final context, the pictures show are about 12hrs+ after feeding.

Any thoughts, tips or ways to progress would be greatly appreciated!

Edit : LOL at myself for thinking I had produced hooch so early on. Not enough research done on my part!

If you're as obsessed with sourdough as I a you know it's family —and family travels together!
This year, my starter had the coolest adventure yet: taking a road trip from the US to Canada, flying across the ocean to France, and flying all the way back home.
Proof that when you love your sourdough, it travels everywhere with you!
Have you ever traveled with your sourdough starter?
Let me know in the comments!
#sourdoughstarter #sourdoughtravels #worldtraveler #bakingcommunity #sourdoughbaker #travelingwithstarter #sourdoughlove

I have my 4 week old starter, maybe its 5 weeks, I'm not entirely sure but lets say 4...

Feeding 50:50 plain(ap), wholemeal throughout.

I have a cheapo proofing box from Amazon, that seems to work quite well, my Thermapen says it is the temperature that i tell it to be, so i say it works. I have tried a few different temps, but settled on 24C (75 in American)

Creating the starter went quite well, was doubling and tripling within about 10 days. The smell was good, or i think it was good, i actually have no idea. But it smelled nice, sweet, yoghurty, yeasty a few other delicious words that made my brain think of tasty bread.

At about day 15 I decided to bake...

Results: Shit!

I didnt know what i was doing, so I followed a recipe to the letter and underproofed.

I did have some pretty nice toast and bruschetta though.

Keen to learn from my mistake, i threw caution to the wind and baked again on day 17.

Result: Even shitterer than #1

The house did smell amazing... so every cloud.

I probably should say that at this point my starter would more than double a 1:1:1 in about 4.5 hours in it's 24C proofer on bake day. It was also happy to consume a 1:4:4 as it's daily feed, peaking after about 8 hours.

After playing some bread rugby, we somewhat reluctantly ate some more under-proofed sourdough.

Fair warning here, eating underproofed sourdough, however delicious it may be, creates quite a bit of wind. Annoyingly, this wind was not created during the bulk phase. So after a weekend of baking, eating bread and farting my little heart out, I decided to wait another week before attempting another loaf.

I fed 1:5:5 every day at 8am, starter lived in the proofer at 24C.

The smells continued to be good, the peaks continued to be predictable, then bake day came again.

i fed my starter a 1:2:2, it peaked at triple the inital size

Followed my recipe all the way to the bulk and... nothing.

10.5 hours later i had about 30% rise on my dough (it was 65% hydration, so i was hoping for close to double). It just didnt want to do anything during the bulk.

It was at 24C the entire time in it's proofer, i thermopen'd the dough, it was 24-25C in the centre.
I was checking the dough every 45 mns and it never got bigger. After the 10.5hrs it was a bit of a sticky mess on the surface. I shaped it, plopped it in the fridge overnight. then baked next morning.

Result: Best so far. Still a bit shit!

It had overproofed - this is the one in the photo btw

After much reading, it sounds like maybe my starter was too acidic?? Breaking down the gluten before it can ferment?

It didn't smell acidic, it smelled kind of delicious, but as i said above I dont really know what I'm doing.

Anyway, this past week I have been trying to 'strengthen a weak starter'

feeding 1:5:5 and trying to not let the starter fully collapse between feedings, which has ended up at twice a day, about 11-12 hours apart. feeding is alway about an hour ish after peak.

NOW MY STARTER SMELLS BAD!

Not like putrid death, or the bin at a cinema. It smells more like a friend's fart, one you can tolerate but you kinda wish they'd at least warned you

It has lost the sweet, yoghurty smell and it is somewhere between alcohol and a little bit cheesy.

I am confused, what the hell is going on?

I have been changing my jar every feed, this is for pure laziness and convenience... Its just easier to start off each feed with a zeroed scale. (Gemini told me this was bad, and could be contributing to my smell change)

I am so confused that I have taken to asking AI for advice, which doesnt seem to work.

No matter what I ask or report, I get 'You are absolutely right... This changes everything' When in reality I think I couldn't be more wrong and changes absolutely nothing.

The recipes i have tried were

https://alexandracooks.com/ bakes 1 & 2
and
https://www.theclevercarrot.com/ -> with slightly increased water content to 300g

I dont think it's the recipe that is the issue.

For absolutely no good reason, I am pretty confident that my starter is the culprit.

Help me!

I kept my discard jar in the fridge unbothered for about 2 weeks and when i took it out of the fridge, this is what it looked like. There’s a lot of grey clear liquid and it developed white spots like a petri dish which looks kinda scary to me but it smells sharp like acetone. I don’t think i see any fuzzy spots, it just looks pretty bubbly to me so im leaning towards hooch but could this also potentially be mold? Just wanna be sure before i use it

If anyone has any input i’d appreciate it :) im relatively new to sourdough baking so im just a little terrified of poisoning my friends and family lol

Iv seen many a post asking this same question

My starter is roughly a week an half old i did a few days of 1:2:2 feeding an just moved to 1:3:3 feeding last night an i feel like my starter is strong enough to raise a loaf, any help or suggestions are welcome!!

Just alil excited as this is my first time really doing any at home baking like this

i started my starter five days ago and have been feeding consistently every 24ish hours. by day 3, it started looking alive. it had a slightly sour, slightly sweet smell and had a lot of bubbles. it even rose a little bit, but it didn’t double so i was thinking this was probably a false rise.

on day 4, it didn’t rise at all and the smell was gone. it now just smells like flour. i fed it like normal. but now, its day 5 and its the exact same. it hasn’t risen, doesn’t have any bubbles, and doesn’t have any smell either. is it possible my starter somehow died and it’s stopped fermenting or something?

i do wanna point out that on day 3, i fed it twice. once in the morning and again around twelve hours later. i heard that its possible i may be overfeeding, so im gonna try “starving” it today and will update back tomorrow.

I let it sit on the counter for only two days, and it had been in the fridge prior to that. It smells like acetone. No new smells. Is it still safe to use? :((