Tried to make a sourdough starter from scratch 3 times this month, all three turned into weird smelling slime that I had to dump down the garbage disposal.

I followed the King Arthur guide to the letter and kept it in a warm spot but after day 5 it just got this gray liquid on top and smelled like gym socks mixed with old cheese, what am I doing wrong with this thing?

3 comments

3 Comments

tyler_bell15d ago

that gray liquid is called hooch and it actually means your starter is hungry, not dead" - for real though, nobody ever mentions that the flour you use makes or breaks this whole thing. If you're using regular bleached all-purpose flour from the grocery store, that stuff has been stripped of the good bacteria and yeast your starter needs to actually get going. Swap to whole wheat or unbleached flour for the first week, it's like giving your starter a huge head start since there's way more natural microbes in there. Even organic rye works like magic if you can find it. The gym sock smell is normal during the first few days when the bad bacteria are fighting it out, but that gray hooch just means you gotta feed it more often or keep it somewhere cooler.

stella_baker15d ago

Oh man, this whole conversation is making me want to start another starter just to try it again! I mean, @tyler_bell is totally right about the flour thing, but here's what happened with me - I got so obsessed with the perfect sourdough that I started naming my starters. I had one named Kevin that I kept alive for like six months and then I accidentally left him in the back of the fridge while I went on vacation. When I came back that jar was just sad and moldy. But the craziest part was that I had given a friend some of Kevin's discard and she kept him going for like two years before she finally killed him by forgetting to feed him for three weeks. Everyone in our friend group would ask about Kevin like he was a real person. Now I just stick with unbleached flour and keep my starters nameless so I don't get emotionally attached again.

skyler_smith8515d ago

Just went through the exact same thing last month and it's honestly so frustrating when you follow all the steps and still end up with garbage disposal goo. Keep at it though, once you switch to unbleached flour it's like night and day difference.