New Starter Question
Hello all,
Quick question, my original starter died leading me to make a new one. At the grocery I was able to find some rye flour and figured Id give the rye a try as I see a lot of people suggesting it for a good starter.
Made the initial mix (1:1 flour:water) and left out over night to do its thing and came back to a starter that was far more advanced than any other started Ive had after only 1 day (started inflating and clear gas bubbles forming throughout). Did the first feeding and within 3 hours the starter had nearly doubled in size. By the next day it had filled the mason jar I was using to mix and had already started to deflate.
I opened the jar to take it out and start the second day of feeding but notice a sour rotting (almost animal rot) smell coming from the starter with no hint of the alcohol like smell that I am used to.
Is the rapid development and smell common with rye based starters? Or is it possible there is something else going on here?
Would you recommend continuing to try and develop this starter or scratch it and retry?
Any help is appreciated!
which is normal. The flour/water goop has to go through several stages of different bacterial taking over as the pH drops preparing the way for yeast growth. Depending on the temperature, I would stop feeding it flour for a few days, reduce the size down to about 1/3 cup (or half to one inch in the bottom of the jar) stir a couple times a day, and get the temp up to at least 75°F. The bacteria comes with the flour but as acid increases, these smelly beasties die off. Yeast doesn't really get into action until about day four or five in 80°F. So a rapid smelly gassy starter in the first few days is not yeast.
If you get too strong a sewer smell, ditch it and start a new one but get the temp up to about 90° for the first 24 hours dropping back between 75° to 80°F the rest of the developing time. Feed daily after 48 hrs by just adding a spoonful of flour and enough water to keep it batter like and not dry out. Feed before the warmest part of the day if in the northern hemisphere.
What is the temperature of the starter now and around the clock? (daytime, nightime).
Maybe this post will make more sense now. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2
Those impressive initial rises were deceptive and in my case followed by inactivity for days until I gave up. The smell was horrible and lingered for days, looking back it was the right decision to ditch it. The pineapple solution linked above is the best way to get started but you might get lucky without it. Even if you get one established within 10 days it might take weeks for it to mature unless you have Mini Oven :) looking over your shoulders daily. Unless you have a lot of patience and time, I would recommend you buy a starter from a good source and be done with it. Good luck.
Perfectly do-able and natural to get a starter going without pineapple juice. In fact the original and most common way. Starters can give off bad smells in the beginning but as the good bacteria take over, with help from feedings, the bad bacteria get killed off. Have made a lot of starters over the years with plain old tap water and it works just fine.
It's not clear whether you are discarding daily and following a consistent feeding ratio using reliable measurements.
The discard is important to maintain your ratio.
I use 100% dark rye starter. It got going fast and was ready within a week. I use filtered water, a 1:1:1 starter:water:flour ratio. When building the starter I was strict about discards. Otherwise things will get out of control. I kept my starter small. You really don't need much flour. It's all in the ratios, not the actual overall volume.
Flour comes with yeast and bacteria in it. Initial crazy activity is various bacteria going nuts. Your goal is to nurture the natural yeast colony in your starter (initial amount of yeast unknown, of course) which means trying to get what is there to grow into a large enough colony that their products of digestion change the environment of the starter to kill off the nasty bacteria and allow the yeast as well as tangy lactobacillus to grow.
So the point of starter building is to create that environment over time. What you see is the incidental drama of that ecosystem being built... unwanted bacteria going nuts at first until the environment becomes too unfriendly as the yeast build up and take over.
It's worthwhile reading up on how starters work to give yourself a sense of agency throughout the process. Unfortunately, it is quite common to misinterpret what is happening.