September 13, 2010 - 6:46pm
Crusty Starter
Help please .. my starter is just 8 days old and the past couple of days it has grown a 1/4" thick brownish crust on top. Every day when I feed it it is there. I've been stirring it in, but today I lifted it off ... what is it ? Is it a death knell ? Starter smells fine and is bubbling away under this crust ..
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Hi, according to your description some air might be responsible of the crust you found...just remove it: if you see the sourdough left is moist, bubbling and smell fine I will have been right in diagnosing your sourdough problems..stirring the sourdough sometimes it really helps too...Let me know and happy baking from Ecuador...Paolo
When starters get too warm, they'll sometimes develop a crust. What is the temperature of its surroundings?
I have been getting crusts on my starter during the past few months. I am sure that the two previous posts addressed the reason- I have occasionally not covered the container with the starter and the crust has formed. I have also had problems with my kitchen being too warm and I have neglected to refrigerate the starter. Under both of those conditions a crust has formed. I have simply scraped it off and moved the starter to a new ,clean container and continued on- My starter has been active for 15 years now-Suffering its way through benign neglect.
I, too, think the previous posters answered my question .. I live in Las Vegas and the weather here is still very, very warm (upper 90's) so my kitchen is too warm for it, I think. I dumped most of it, fed it and moved it to a clean container and put it in my den where the temp is about 80. is this still too warm ? next move would be to my bedroom where I think it is around 74 - 75. also, I had only had it covered with a thin dish towel so it definitely got air. since it is a new starter I thought it was sposed to be left "uncovered" until it got it's final sourness ? also, when I fed it last night I put Saran over it and today .. no turtle crust. thank you all ..
75 would be better than 80, I think, but keeping it uncovered probably isn't doing anything for you.
Happy Baking :-)
-dw