My sourdough starter took 14 days to double, then I switched tap water for filtered

I kept thinking my starter was dead or my kitchen was too cold, but after a month of nada I finally tested bottled water. Turns out our town's chlorine levels were killing the yeast. Has anyone else hit this wall with local tap water?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_thomas13d ago

Used to be the guy who swore tap water was fine and people were just overthinking it. Then my starter stalled out for two weeks straight, completely flat, no bubbles at all. Switched to filtered and it was active again inside 48 hours. Felt like an idiot for arguing about it before I actually tried it. Now I tell everyone to test their water first before blaming the flour or the temperature.

brown.gavin13d ago

Wait, wait. Fourteen days of doubling and then suddenly it stops? That's wild. I had a similar thing happen but it took almost three weeks for mine to even start bubbling, and then it just died again. I was ready to toss the whole jar before someone told me about chloramine. Check your town's water report, sometimes they add that stuff and it's way worse than regular chlorine for killing the good bacteria.