Did I Kill My Starter?

The most common question I hear about sourdough starters is how to create one. There are a lot of good threads on that here, and many people have reported success with one or another of the methods described in these pages.

The question I hear next most often is, "Did I kill my starter?" This usually happens because the starter has turned a funky color, and maybe started to smell funny, after being either underfed or neglected.

The answer I give, and one you'll read over and over in these pages, is that it's nearly impossible to kill a healthy starter, and that a starter can suffer a lot of abuse and neglect and still bounce back.

As if to prove this theory, I recently neglected my starter for about a month. Check out this post to read about my experience and see before and after pictures of my neglected starter.

And to answer your question, no, chances are you didn't kill your starter.