My failed sourdough starter: How it happened and lessons learnt

I started my 'sourdough' first using the leftover poolish, which was basically a mixture of yeast, bread flour and water in some proportions. I had kept it in the fridge all the time, since the beginning. Somehow I thought it would work after thawing. So here is what I got after leaving it on the countertop for 3 days.

It just went totally orange and smelt totally sour and acidic, almost like vinegar. To be honest, what I googled didn't really give any clues on what should be correct and wasn't for sourdough. So I was really none the wiser. Sourdough is tricky, in that it turns out so differently for different people, different climates and different kitchen conditons. Anyway, it got too smelly to be right and the colour was turning ORANGE! Afraid that it was turning out to be harmful, food-poisoning inducing bacteria, I decided to toss it and start another one.

So I started sourdough no. 2.

Day 1

I mixed the following to get a pasty mixture. It smells just like flour and water.

4g instant / dried yeast

1/4 cup bread flour

1/4 cup tepid water (not tap water)

The original recipe for sourdough is usually to use flour and water and wait for some wild yeasts to grow on this culture. But living in Singapore, where the weather is hot and humid, and therefore a wonderful place for all sorts of bacteria and microorganisms to breed and thrive, I preferred to have a known source of yeast.

Similar to the Herman starter, I also did not expect the sourdough starter to just start growing immediately. Here's what I got after 2-3 hours.

The yeast starter immediately 'bloomed' and I had to switch to a taller container.

Day 2

I wanted to just keep to feeding the sourdough once a day and that's what I did. So here is how the sourdough mixture looked on Day 2.

It looks a bit bubbly, and watery, with a light yeasty smell. Actually this watery stuff known as 'hooch' is already forming on top of the starter. 

I stirred everything and discarded half the starter before adding in 1 tablespoon of bread flour and 1 tablespoon of water. Usually after stirring I would let the mixture be uncovered for a while before screwing the cover back on again. The mixture started to become bubbly after 1 hour. 

Days 3-5

For the subsequent days, I continued to feed the sourdough once a day, after stirring and discarding half of the existing mixture. I would add 1 or 2 tablespoons of flour and the same amount of water.

Before feeding

After feeding

The smell of the sourdough was still yeasty but there was a slightly skanky smell, a hint of what reminds me of drainage water. Actually that was the smell of the hooch, which should be discarded and I did not know that before.

Days 6-8

Upon realising that I should not be stirring the hooch back into the yeast solution, I started to discard the hooch and half of the remaining yeast solution before stirring in 2 tablespoons each of flour and water once a day.

Alas, the starter was beginning to become still. It just stopped bubbling and while it still smelt alright, it was way better than the first smelly sourdough, I decided to start over again. But I did learn very valuable lessons and I am determined to try again keeping the following points in mind!

Lessons learnt:

1. Sourdough should just be the colour of the flour you are adding. Why do I say this, if you use rye or whole wheat flour your sourdough starter will be darker in colour. What it shouldn't be is red or pink or orange. And it should still smell like an overproofed bread at most, not some weird smell.

2. For the first week at least, try to feed the sourdough twice a day (or once every 12 hours). Starving the sourdough will cause the hooch to form. Better to feed more to the starter than feed less.

3. Hooch is a byproduct and should be discarded, not stirred back into the yeast starter.

4. Feeding the starter with rye or wholewheat flours provides more nutrients that the yeast may not otherwise get from just bread (wheat) flour and helps the culture to grow better.

5. Never totally close the cover of the sourdough bottle / container. Allow some space for the fermentation gases to escape. If you are using a screw cap, just don't screw it all the way.

And here are some links that could help you the sourdough journey!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Ssdzk6uhI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stoPYwdPU-E