Rye Seed Culture
I'm very new at this artisan bread making but I'm very determined to do it right.
I've been trying to make a seed culture using the recipe in Peter Reinhart's ARTISAN BREADS EVERY DAY. For the first batch I used all rye flour and pineapple juice. It bubbled, barely, at one stage, but never quite bubbled like the recipe said it should and it never double in size. I did go ahead to the second stage - Mother Starter. But it was incredibly sticky and smelled nasty. It was like sticky putty that did not thing with water. I went ahead and put it in the refrigerator as instructed. It's still there, 4 days later. I'm not sure if it's OK to use.
I started a second seed culter same as above. It looked like it would progress nicely until I got to phase 3. Again, it's not increasing in size and the only bubbles are on the bottom that I can see through the glass bowl. I put it in the oven with no heat but out of cold drafts. Well, my husband accidentally turned the oven on for dinner prep, and well, I think I cooked the starter before turning it into bread. Should I discard that?
I just started a third seed culture using white bread flour and water as instructed by Peter Reinhart's above mentioned book. Any tips to make sure this one progresses as it should?
Should I discard the first two?
Thanks!
Kathleen