Sourdough Starter Day 4, 5 and FAILURE!
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Well, I haven’t posted for a few days as I have been hanging my head in shame after failing at my sourdough starter and bread. Not sure what went wrong, but if I set out what I did below then maybe one of my kind readers will be about to spot the problem.
I fed the starter just like normal on day 4 and on day 5 I woke up to a bubbly frothy starter. SUCCESS – or so I thought!
I searched for a sourdough bread recipe and found one that uses a sponge mixture to make the dough.
It said to pour the starter into a large glass bowl and add some warm water and flour.
I followed the instructions to the letter and gave it a good mix…
Then I left it to ‘proof’ in the airing cupboard until it get frothy on top.
Well after 10 hours it was still not frothy but sure smelt sour. I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and gave the recipe a go.
I used:
- 2 Cups of sponge (proofed starter)
- 3 Cups of flour
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 4 teaspoons of sugar
- 2 teaspoons of salt
I then left it for an hour to rise – which it didn’t and the ‘punched it down’ even though it didn’t need it as it had not risen. Then I made it into a loaf and placed it on a baking tray and scored the top with a knife.
To cut a long story short – here is the brick that I ended up with.
So what went wrong? I have started again and am determined not to give up! Any advice would be appreciated.
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Never made Sourdough myself. But if my normal bread making yeast fails – it’s usually because not used enough sugar to feed or water used too cold or hot, is your airing cupboard nice and warm?
There are various old wives tales about bread making – never use metal bowl or spoons and won’t work on a rainy day.
I think with sour dough starters you supposed to throw some of mixture away each day as you add to it?
Bad luck EcoBloke.
Are you going to try again?
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The first thing that springs to mind is that unless you have a poorly insulated immersion heater switched on permanently, it’s very possibly not warm enough in there to give the yeasts enough to grow with.
A lot of places where sourdough was made would have had a boiler or range continually on.
It would also depend upon the proportion of fungal spores in the air immediately above the jar at the time of sealing. In a bakery, for example, I would expect a lot of the ‘right’ ones floating around. In a very clean, well ventilated kitchen, the proportion of useful fungus is going to be fairly low.
Perhaps the jar could be left open in the kitchen whilst you bake something else, just to try and encourage it to start, maybe even with a pinch of sugar/tiny blob of honey to feed anything that lands?
That sucks man – I had such high hopes for you!
Ah! I anticipated some yummy sourdough bread! The brick you’ve got doesn’t look too appealing. I have never made sourdough myself, so wouldn’t know what went wrong. Hope you get it right the next time! Keep us posted! All the best.
I’m not sure if this will help but I add a cup of white spelt flour and 2 tsb of honey in my starter?? Good luck with round 2!
Ah yes, I’m dealing with that same problem this morning. My sponge (which seemed very active) has totally failed to proof. It seemed bubbly for the first little while proofing, but 12 hours later it just seems dead. If you have better success in the future, I would love to know what you did differently.
Haven’t heard from you in a while? Need to hear some more ramblings for a greener life!
And where have you disappeared, ecobloke?