My neighbor's one comment saved my sourdough starter from the trash

I had been fighting with my sourdough starter for like 3 months back in January, it kept going moldy or smelling like acetone. I was about to dump the whole jar and give up, figured I just wasn't cut out for it. Then my neighbor across the hall, this older lady named Mrs. Garcia, knocked on my door when she smelled something off from my apartment. She peeked at my starter and said, "Honey, you're feeding it too much, too often. That's like overwatering a plant. Let it get hungry." She told me to drop the feeding to once every 36 hours and use less water. I tried it for two weeks and suddenly I had this bubbly, happy starter that actually rose my bread. Best loaf I ever baked was with that starter, a honey oat no knead on a Saturday afternoon. Has anyone else had someone point out a super simple fix like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

cora_scott772d ago

WAIT three MONTHS??? Girl you are a warrior, I would have thrown that jar out the window after like week two and bought some instant yeast. Mrs. Garcia sounds like a sourdough saint honestly, I had a similar moment when my starter got all liquidy and someone told me to stop using tap water, switched to bottled and it was like magic.

charlie_ellis1d ago

@cora_scott77 that tap water thing got me too. I was using filtered fridge water but still having issues until someone pointed out my filter was probably stripping the minerals the yeast needs. Mrs. Garcia's advice about feeding less often makes me wonder if we're all just overcomplicating this. Did you notice a difference in how often your starter needed feeding after switching water, or was it just the one change that did it?

mia74811h ago

Oof yeah, overcomplicating is the real enemy here. I did the same thing with my starter until a baker buddy told me to just stop fussing with it so much. Sometimes the simple stuff really does fix everything.