Starting a new "Sourdough Starter"
I had been neglecting my sourdough starter so rather than try and resuscitate I decided to start a new one from scratch.
Started early Tuesday morning using Amy's Bread instructions. Which are very simple. Two ounces of organic rye and four ounces of bottled spring water. Mixed together and left loosely covered on the counter for 48 hours. I started two at the same time just in case.
By this morning, 48 hours later the starters had doubled. So I fed them again each with two ounces of the rye and two ounces of the water.
This is what they looked like in less than an hour. Already active.
Both had almost doubled in two hours.
And had more than doubled in three hours.
It is all about the flour. I use an organic rye milled for me by a friend who owns Scoops Natural Foods. Pam sells Bosch small appliances and organic grains, etc...
Tonight I will start the maintenance phase. Will maintain one with rye and one with white. And I'll use some of the discard to make a biga/preferment. Let it develop overnight and mix up a batch of sourdough bread before leaving for work tomorrow.
Looks good, Ann! I chucked my 200% hydration rye starter because it got too yucky, and I figured making a new one would be easy (the first couple were, just with the rye from the bulk bins, milled at home). Just this week, I pulled out my wheat starters (started from whole wheatberries), pulled the hooch, and fed them up. I was a little worried, because it had been six months. Too much else had been happening for me to mess with the starters. They popped right back up! The whole wheat one has always been a little slow to revive, even after a week, so I'm still feeding it (since Monday) to get it good and strong (it takes too long, for my tastes, to double right now), but the white one was skipping and hopping and doubling fast after just a couple of feedings and is already back in the fridge.
Don't give up so fast! Your starters might have been just fine!
Yes my starters have always bounced back even after eight weeks of neglected.
But even I recognize a starter gone bad. LOL!! This one was definitely not worth saving. Since I knew from experience that using the rye flour that I use, that it wouldn't take long to get a new starter active, I wasn't concerned about throwing out the old one.
Oh! Gone bad! That's another story. :)
Side question: What do you use to remove your marker lines? I usually use whatever leftover wine is by the stove for cooking, but the chardonnay wasn't working on my jars this week...