New starter smells like vinegar on day 5
Hello fellow bakers! I need a bit of guidance building my sourdough starter. I'm kind of new and I'm not sure what to expect.
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Last Saturday I started to build a starter again using Ken Forkish method (from his book salt yeast water flour). I reduce the amount but I kept the same ratios. This method uses whole wheat flour, not rye and it's a 100% hydration. I started to see activity at the end of day 2. On day 3 it was growing pretty well and it never smelled funky (as I had previously experience on the first days), it always had a very pleasant smell of wet flour and slight smell of beer. So far I was feeding it in the morning just once a day, but on day 4 I had to feed it twice because it was growing very fast and 24h would be too much, (my house is at a temperature of 73-76F).
For the feedings I was taking 20 g of starter and adding 40g of whole wheat flour and 40 g of water.
On day 5 I switched to:
15g of starter + 10g whole wheat +40g bread flour + 50g water.
It was then when the smell turned to vinegar. And when I went home for lunch I saw that it had grown about x3, so I couldn't wait until the evening to feed it again. So I started to feed it 3 times a day (this was yesterday, day 5), morning (8-9 am), afternoon (3-4pm) and evening (10-11pm). The smell is still there. But I have no idea why. I've read online a lot and everyone has a different opinion lol.
Possible causes according to the internet:
- Vinegar smells is normal when changing from whole wheat to bread flour
- it occurs when the temperature is not warm enough
- starter was under fed (I didn't see hooch though)
What are your thoughts?
What would you suggest to fix this? Because the bread will come out too sour and with a strong vinegar taste.
NOTE: A few months ago I tried to build a starter using raisin yeast water, and I threw it away because I couldn't get rid of that vinegary smell. I can't remember but it could've started when I started to add bread flour.
Thanks a lot and sorry for the long post!
M.