My rye starter is ill...
Hi all
I need some urgent medical input for my seriously ill rye sourdough starter. I'd left it in the fridge since Tuesday and I decided to give it a feed last night. As I stirred the starter I noticed that it had a tinge of redness to it, I wouldnt call it red but rather just a shade of pink almost. I did the normal feed and left it in my room overnight. This morning when I woke up I was alarmed to the fact that it had hardly grown after 12 hours!! It has probably just grown to about 1/8th the original height now. I'm seriously worried about it because normally it would have doubled in height overnight. What should I do now? Should I give it another feed or wait for to double? I have a feeling that is never going to happen.. I can see small bubbles forming in the starter but it's just not increasing in volume.
I have to confess that I just found out that the communal kettle in my kitchen has got lots of debris in there and I have been using half boiled warm water from that kettle for my starter. Could that have been the reason? It was fine with the same water in the first few feeds it's only since last week that things started to go a little pear shaped. Back then I'd left it in the fridge for too long without feeding and it had half an inch of alcohol on the surface. I fed it and it grew fairly well overnight(though not exaclty doubled or like how it used to be) and I left it in the fridge on Tuesday.
By the way it doesn't smell like it's gone off and neither has it gone mouldy.
Any advice is much appreciated!
Regards
Kong