Hi John, it sounds like you're experiencing a fairly common occurrence which involves a type of bacteria that gives off carbon dioxide early in the sourdough creation process. Unfortunately, the presence of this type of bacteria seems to be related to a subsequent delay in the wild yeast kicking in. Check out my reply to Phyliss below for an alternative feeding routine to address this issue. As I said, this happens fairly often, and there are ways to tweak your feeding routine to help move your starter along in the right direction. For more information on why this happens, and what can be done about it, check out this article by microbiologist, Debra Wink. If you decide to start over, Debra Wink offers a slightly different feeding routine in her article, which may get you off to a better start and avoid this bacteria from the get go. 

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

Barb

• Reply