Hi Prakash, sometimes a starter that has been neglected can develop an aroma that is similar to nail polish remover or acetone, which may pass over into the finished bread. Using whole grain flour that has a rancid odor could also result in an off flavor in your bread. I'm not quite sure how your starter routine lines up with the maintenance routine we normally recommend, but since you're feeding it daily some of this advice may be applicable. 

If your starter smells a bit chemically, then this might be a good time to give your starter a few days of regular feedings, being careful to feed your starter when it's at its highest point of rising, or just beginning to fall. Allowing the starter to collapse significantly between feedings is not helpful to your starter's overall health or performance. For our starter routine we recommend twice a day feedings when you're maintaining your starter at room temperature. 

However, if you happen to live in a warmer climate where fermentation tends to occur more rapidly, then you may find you need to adjust the ratio of ingredients in your starter to help slow things down. To that end, feeding your starter a relatively larger meal, which it will take longer to consume and ferment, can be helpful. This might mean adopting a ratio of 1:4:4 or even 1:5:5 (starter:water:flour, by weight). Feeding your starter a "relatively larger meal" doesn't have to mean using up more flour, since you can reduce the amount of starter relative to water/flour. The goal here is to allow your feedings at room temperature to line up closer to the peak. To maintain a consistent ratio of ingredients it's generally necessary to discard a portion of your starter if you're not planning to bake with it, but you can save the discard in your refrigerator for a week or two, and use it in recipes calling for sourdough discard. 

While I'm not sure what the spots are that you're describing, if they are like raised pimples or blisters, this could be the result of refrigerating your shaped loaf prior to baking. Moisture collects on the surface of refrigerated dough, and can cause this type of blistering to occur. This isn't something I consider a defect.

The spots may also be related to your baking or steaming method, but I can't imagine that they are harmful. 

I hope this helps! Let us know how it goes. 

Barb 

• Reply