Barb at King Arthur

March 29, 2019 at 8:43am

In reply to by Bruce (not verified)

Hi Bruce, I'm a little worried about the orange tint (which could be a sign of unfriendly bacteria) as well as the mold. Both of these are signs that your starter has been neglected to a point where it no longer has the strength to fight off unwelcome invaders. A starter that has been so weakened is going to take quite a lot of time to rejuvenate, so it may be wiser and safer to start over and create a new starter from scratch or purchase a mature starter from us. I doubt that eating the baked bread from your starter will make you sick, but you may know better than I do at this point! With your new starter I would work towards a maintenance routine that involves feeding twice daily when you keep your starter at room temperature, and at least once a week when you store it in the refrigerator. Feeding your starter regularly and often at room temperature will help to build healthy populations of wild yeast and friendly bacteria. I find that a combination of a few days of refrigeration coupled with a few days of twice a day feedings at room temperature prior to baking works well. If you adopt this sort of feeding routine, you'll have a starter that is both resistant to invaders and able to perform at its best in your baking. Barb
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.