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Tried making sourdough starter from scratch for 2 weeks and it never bubbled

I followed Joshua Weissman's recipe exactly, kept it in my kitchen at 72 degrees, fed it every 12 hours like clockwork. After 14 days it just smelled like acetone and never doubled in size. I picked up some active starter from a bakery downtown for $5 and had a loaf rising in 3 hours. Anyone else waste time on a starter that just wouldn't cooperate?
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2 Comments
henderson.wesley
Yeah the acetone smell means it was starving, you probably should have switched to whole wheat flour instead of white.
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allen.ivan
...and here I thought I was being fancy by switching to spelt flour once, and my starter just gave me a sad, sour look for a week. That acetone smell had me thinking my kitchen was haunted or something, not that I was just starving my little yeast buddies. I guess I still have a lot to learn about the whole "feeding schedule" thing, my starter's probably been on a hunger strike while I'm at work. Whole wheat does make sense though, more food for them to munch on.
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