Starter Keeps Developing Hooch
Hello!
I'm brand new to this whole bread game.
I created a starter on 5/24 with 50g of unbleached bread flour and 50g of water.
I'm now following a starter schedule I found on YouTube which is different from what I started with. This person started with 100g flour and 115g of water. Day 2 of my starter and I decided to use this persons schedule, so day 2 was 70g starter, 100g flour and 100g water, day 3 same as day 2, Day 4 is 70g starter, 100g flour and 100g water, day 5 same as day 4, day 6 50g starter, 100g flour and 100g water, day 7 25g starter, 100g flour and 100g water.
On the second day of my starter I noticed bubbles on the top but no rise. It also smelled a bit like vinegar and by day 3 started developing a liquid on the top, I guess this is hooch?
I'm on day 4 now and I've started to feed it every 12 hours. Is this right? Will this still turn into a viable starter? Should I start over? Any tips/suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!!!
Don't start over. There is a battle going on in your starter and eventually the bacteria that produce the acid will win. Every 12 hours is fine if the weather is warm. If you can keep it in a bit cooler area, then every 24 hours will work. Things might seem a bit funky for a few days, but keep it up and soon (after about 7 to 10 days) you should have a working starter that will get even better over time.
There is so much information available that it makes it hard to see. One of those "can't see the forest for the trees" things. Here re some links for useful info that I found using the "SEARCH' box. I have posted a lot on this so I tried to include some of those. THink of your starter like a pet or a child and the concepts of how to care for it become clearer.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/57320/cant-graduate-past-pineapple-juice#comment-417112
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/57321/sourdough-starter-impossibility-prove-me-wrong
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/41151/my-sourdough-starter-routine-faq
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/54925/simple-liquid-starter-sullivan-street-bakery-cookbook
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/39299/totally-overwhelmed-noob
Here is a post I wrote in 2016:
Take a minute to remember what you are doing. You are growing a culture and your jar is the cage. You have to have something in it before you feed it. Don't feed an empty cage. Just stir it several times a day for the next few days. It will start bubbling more and more. THEN start feeding it (daily,at first) and keep stirring it. Don't start discarding half until it rises and falls a few times because every time you do that (at this stage) you are throwing a large chunk of your population out. So let them all stay, eat and multiply. The culture will consist of lactobacillus, other various bacteria and yeasts. You want to make it a friendly environment for the yeasts to grow and undesirables to leave. You do that with temperature and acidity. Acidity can come from pineapple juice and/or lactos.The lactos are your friend and they will produce the needed acid with or without pineapple juice. For a while they will dominate but eventually they settle in with the yeasts as nice, permanent neighbors.
It is easier to build something if you understand what you are building. Imagine being given plans for an unknown object and being told to build it. Kind of like an IKEA cabinet. This culture is like growing a garden. Make a habitable space, plant the seed (mixing flour and water), waiting for growth, weeding out undesirables, once grown-feed and harvest. Same concept. You have to wait for the sequence to unfold and can't jump ahead.
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