Unsalveageable Starter?
Hi everyone.
For a while, I had a tartine starter going with no problems - I would reserve a couple tablespoons, then add 40g water, and 40g of a 50/50 whole wheat and white flour mixture. The feeding schedule was every 24 hours. It doubled reliably, always smelled pleasant, and never gave me any problems.
Then I started getting a little brazen and started feeding it only once every 2 or 3 days. Big mistake. It developed a rotten egg smell and turned a batch of dough into glue. I decided to rehabilitate it by feeding twice a day at the same ratio but with pineapple juice instead of water. After a week of doing this, I returned to using water, confident that the "infection" had gone away. After a couple days on the same twice a day feeding schedule, the rotten smell returned. I intensified the feeding schedule to 3 times a day, whereupon the smell returned to normal for a single day. I thought I was on the right track, but once again, it transformed back into the rotten egg/ baby vomit mixture. It's been 2 weeks and there's no improvement in sight.
I'm keeping the starter at 71/72 degrees F in a clean glass jar with a loosely fitting lid. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just a sign that I need to make a new starter?I was under the impression that if you just kept feeding it, then the undesirable bacteria will eventually go away. Is this starter unsalveagable?