Im very green w baking. So im trying tomake Tartine Country bread. Following Robertson’s recipe, I began the starter Tuesday morning. It rose a good bit Thursday afternoon and by Friday morning it smelled like cheese. Pretty funky. So I began feeding it Friday am after I threw out 80% and fed the 20% as his instructions read. The starter hasnt did anything re: rise/fall or bubbles the today or yesterday. i have maintained a temp 71-73. Im assuming I did something wrong. Does anyone have any ideas where I went wrong? Or should I feed it one more morning and see if anything changes? Thanks for any tips!!
Keep working on it. This is what always happens. People being their starters, they get the Day 2 explosion of activity and then it dies out. And then they think their starter is dead. It is not. It is just very young. Keep it up!
I was having the same issue with my starter. After a lot of research I found out the following:
The first rise was due to bacteria rather than yeast - the starter then gets too acidic to support the bacteria so they die off making room for the yeast to start growing.
Discarding and feeding too much (I don't have the book so I'm not sure on the ratios, but most people feed 1:2:2 starter:flour:water) means that you keep diluting the starter. I started feeding mine 2:1:1 - so 100g starter, 50g flour, 50g water and after a couple of feedings it started rising beautifully and it smells wonderful. I hope it helps!