Submitted by ltlmccomas on April 11, 2008 - 9:05am
I made up a batch of rye sourdough starter. I nursed it for several days and then converted it to a wheat starter over several days. Today while I was on the phone, the starter (sitting on stove) got too hot. The temperature went above 80 degrees. The temperature was high for less than 20 minutes. I immediately dumped half of the starter and added equal part wheat flour and water to bring temperature down and to feed it. How will I know if the started has gone bad? It will be obvious if the starter never activates/bubbles again. But how do I know if the wrong type of bacteria has been introduced?
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How much above 80?
From what I've read, you want to keep the starter below 90, but 100 kills the yeast. So depending on how high it actually got... 80-85 is considered pretty good at particular points of the cycle.
It always recovers...
Dr. Wood once said that he's never been unable to revive a starter.
A few of the cynics in rec.food.sourdough commented that it isn't clear the starter that was revived was the starter that was abused.
The take home message? Feed it, it'll probably be OK. It may or may not be the same starter you had before, but it'll be OK.
If not, start overl making a starter really isn't that hard.
Mike