My starter smells like warm garbage!
I wasn't home wednesday and thursday and I left my starter (which i had just fed) on the counter (cause I didn't know I wouldn't be home). It's very warm and humid these days. When I came home, it was still a little bubbly but when I smelled it, it smelled like warm funky garbage. I worried it had gone bad or something? But visually it looks fine. So I fed it and after a few hours it had almost doubled. So i guess it still works, but I'm worried about the smell. I've used funky starter in the past and it gave my (well risen) bread a (not pleasantly) funky aftertaste. This starter smells worse than anything I've used before. It used to smell beautifully yeasty I don't know how two days of not feeding would change it so drastically. Any ideas?
I feed with a 50/50 mix of rye and wholewheat.
20 g of your flour mixture and 20 g of water. Once it has risen and fallen, double the feeding and repeat for 3to 4 cycles. See if that brings the smell back to what it was. If it doesn't, I would throw it out. Odours like acetone are normal when a starter is hungry but warm garbage odours... I am not so sure about.
I'll do that tonight :( and yeah acetone starters i can handle but this one makes me feel sick in my stomach oooo boy haha
Thanks Danni. I've fed it about three times so far and after the second feeding it's back to its nice yeasty smell. It hasn't quite doubled between rises but that might be cause I disposed of so much of it and only left like a tablespoon cause I was turned off by the smell. I'll give it a few more days before baking with it again. thank u!
And as said previously, keep it in the fridge between uses. i actually make mine very thick and keep it in there for months. When I want to bake, i take a tiny bit out and feed that repeatedly until I have the required amount for baking. It usually takes me 4 feedings but I have done it in two in a pinch.
The idea comes from Dab. Look up no fuss no muss starter.
When not feeding keep it in the fridge.
...and the smell is always exaggerated when you first take the lid off. Give it some TLC like Danni has suggested and see what happens. If it doesn't improve or you see mould then start again.
The two days I was out, I left home cause a friend needed my help, and I ended up staying over for two days. I didn't anticipate not coming home the same day. I guess I'm just confused that in such a short amount of time, this would happen. I also don't put a lid on my starter. I'm gonna follow Danni's advice I hope everything works out cause my starter only recently started behaving the way I want it to lol. thanks!
clean your starter container out completely and wash in the sink or dishwasher. Then use that tiny bit you saved and give it a robust feeding in the clean container.
I did clean my jar well before adding the remaining starter, and now it's back to its normal smell