Did I kill the yeast in my starter
Starting a separate thread as I can't post pictures in the previous thread.
Now I maintain my starter in the refrigerator feeding it once a week but skipped last week so heres my starter (93% hydration) as of today after being removed from the refrigerator and fed 18 hours back as follows:
Starter - 10g
Flour (White + wwf) - 10g
Water - 10g
At the end of 12 hours the mound had spread out and there were very few bubbles around the sides. I just stired it down and heres what it looks like 18hrs after the feed. It still smells only like flour and water so I am sure its not hungry and starved.
Before baking I usually keep it out and feed it once every 24hrs till I see a significant rise and doubling up of volume (which was noticed only closer to feed time around the 24 hr mark on day 3).
The point to note here is the smell is neutral or flour not nailpolish remover. Also my starter in the refrigerator does not smell hungry after 2 whole weeks without a feed.
So how do I take it on from here?
Get some more wholegrain in there and take the approach of only feeding when you see significant activity just like when you were creating the starter. If no activity then skip a feed or two till it picks up and just stir.
Have you changed anything to make your starter play up? You might wish to feed with pineapple juice to give it a nudge in the right direction. Then switch back to water. Try using water which has been boiled and cooled! In case it's the water making it misbehave.
Best of luck.
Except for the not feeding while refrigerated. Just a thought, could cross contamination be an issue - my refrigerator is usually packed with lots of stuff - do you keep it airtight in the refrigerator? I also usually have a lot of soaking sprouting fermenting going on in my kitchen.
I use tap water filled in a cup and resting over night. Will try boiled n cooled water too.