April 8, 2019 - 4:00pm
Pls help! White starter smell problem
Hi everyone,
I am growing a white starter but something is wrong. I will appreciate your help.
It's a few weeks old. I feed it twice per day according to the following schedule - 1:2:2 keeping 15 gr of starter and discarding the rest before each feed. It rises within 6 hours but has a strange smell which is carried onto a baked loaf. The smell reminds of a true yeasty smell but with strange hints of sweat.
I also have whole wheat, whole rye, whole spelt starters that work and smell great.
I wanted to have all white starter as well.
Thanks for help!
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Sorry...I loved your description. I'm not an expert...but since you already had established starters of other types...you are already ahead of the game if you want to start again.
Did you use a seed from one of those to start this starter or as I assume you started from water and flour only? I use a pretty simple refresh per Ginsberg rye refresh info and just keep my starters all at 100% in the frig after it gets close to peak. Works for my lifestyle and my brain power. LOL! I just adjust a day or two ahead of bakes for what the recipe calls for.
But my starters are probably months old or more and trained.
Yeah, we called it "Camembert bread" :)
I tried both - just flour and water and feeding WW starter with white flour. Both starters developed strange smells but different ones.
As David suggested, it might mean that the starter is underdeveloped yet. I will continue feeding it and see what happens.
Interesting what you mentioned re refresh info, I will look into that.
Sweat as in "that teenager gym-socks smell"? If so, it might be brevibacterium linens. If that one is the only problem, you should know that it's not dangerous and shows up on perfectly good cheese quite often. But... I have a feeling that (a) that might not be the smell you mean, AND (b) there might be more going on.
Plus (c), nobody wants sweaty bread, even if cheese that smells like socks can be good. ☺️
I just had the smell-memory of a much worse, more pervasive, but still vaguely sweaty smell... If your starter has THAT, whatever it is, I encourage you to start again - just because the taste is quite unpleasant, though I don't know the name of it.
Is it possible your starter might be too new/underdeveloped to bake with? Leuconostoc bacteria are extremely common in too-new starters, especially white-flour ones, and have a musty-socks stinky-cheese type of smell. They are completely expected and normal in a starter that still needs feeding and development before baking with it for the first time.
Hi David,
Thanks for your suggestions. I think I will continue feeding it and see what happens.
Thanks again!
for a change. If the starter has low acid, reducing the starter food might push the acid high enough to force a change for the better. How is the yeast power? What ars the starter temperature? If under 75°F try raising the temperature.
Skip a feedings for a day or two and go back to 1:1:1 ratio, once a day with less water but equal amounts of flour if the 100% hydration appears too thin to rise. Then just be patient with it. Let the starter peak out and fall at least once before adding more flour. You can easily split the starter before trying to increase the acid. Sometime after a few days, the little fed starter will make a big leap change.
It's been a while since over been here, but I would have to agree with the young starter comments. 2 weeks old seems young for a starter that began with only flour and water. Leucs would definitely not be a "sweet" smell, more likes a combination of a dead animal left in a hot humid swamp, old gym socks left in the bottom of a closet, and parmesan cheese, and you should be beyond that stage by now (that's more a first week smell). I would suggest to not discard when feeding. That may be causing an issue of dilution which may be slowing down the growth of the labs. Do discard when your container cannot hold any more starter, but try to keep it at a minimum for now. Odds are good things will get that wonderful sweet sour smell in a couple weeks. Good luck and do give updates, I'm always curious!
thanks, trying that ! no changes in aroma yet, but we'll see
Just reread the first post and saw you have other good starters. Throw in a pinch of one if the other good starters as seed material. Won't hurt anything and may get things going quicker.