Sourdough starter

General notes on making and maintaining a sourdough starter.

Making

If making a new starter, follow Jack process. It's important to maintain the temperature or it won't work. When it's cold I used the heat mat constantly (set to 22 C, min is 20 C). Always use 35 C water.

Maintenance

If the starter hasn't been used for ~2 weeks, a normal feed should bring it back to life. If it's older than that, I have found it isn't airy even after a multiple feeds. To fix this, give it a feed then discard the next day then feed it again, it should be looking better. Use your judgement, the golden rule is: if the starter isn't airy it will affect the rise.

When storing the starter make sure the lid is sealed. Some people say you don't have too but I lost a few starters in the beginning and can only blame it on oxygen. As soon as I started sealing them they survived.

Good to know

I once left the starter for 2-3 weeks and it smelt like old gym socks (which is OK). I fed it 50 gm then 25 gm on 2nd day and it doubled in size and was back to nail polish. Used it and didn't get sick 😁.