"Skeet" McD
Practically Family
- Messages
- 755
- Location
- Essex Co., Mass'tts
fortworthgal said:
The problems with keeping a sourdough starter going can usually be traced to one (or both) of two things:
Never put anything in your starter except flour and water; there are a zillion traditions out there of doctoring it with one thing or another...but the thing is, you want to keep the chemistry just where YOUR yeast likes it...adding things that make it sweeter, or change the pH, or introduce bacteria that live on something else (while giving that bacteria something it likes to eat) really can screw things up. "Keep an even flow!"
Make sure your starter is working at all times when it is out in ambient temperatures--you want to see it bubbling away. Once it goes dormant, it can't protect itself against whatever else might like to move in. You've got to keep IT the dominant culture in your medium. If you don't want to keep feeding it (and most of us don't bake enough sourdough to use it up as fast as we make it, and you can only give so much of it away!), put it in the fridge. It should keep pretty much indefinitely in there.
Also, don't be put off by the alcoholic-smelling and dirty looking liquid that will rise to the top of your dormant culture....sometimes called the "hooch." Just stir it right back in. The presence of this liquid is NOT a sign that things have gone bad. Believe me: you'll know it, in the very, very unusual chance that you'll have a culture go bad (assuming you've been good about the stuff above): the smell will be definitely "off." If it smells clean, like it should...it will be fine, no matter WHAT it looks like. There have been times when through long disuse and inattention some of my starters have completely dried up.....just throw water on, stir it up....and off you go again. Yeast is about as close to immortal as a living thing can get: if you don't freeze it or boil it, it will live. If you feed it at any temperature between those points, it will grow, and at room temperatures, it will thrive.
So, good for you! Give it another go, and I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun and make a lot of very good bread.
"Skeet"
kinda looks like crap but it was definitely good...
