Bread Banter - Smelly Starter
Yeeet this yeast! Grab that Gluten ! Banter ‘bout bread ! First Bread Banter post wooooh!
I’ve gone through a few starters and made a shit ton of bad loaves. I smell my starter every day normally and it’s never quite the same but it has taught me to really stick to my gut.. most of the time I will but obviously I have gone against the grain and have had to learn the hard way..
I have easily gone through over 100kgs of flour and about a year and a half of hobbyist sourdough making and am only now, starting to create bread I can very proudly share. That is extremely hard for me to say so I’m damn proud.. but honestly it all starts with your starter. Such a convenient name for it really.
So ending the banter and getting what you’re really here for:
Smell ya starter
Is that weird? NO. Never let anyone tell you that. You do you boo.
You really got to know your baby right? What’s normal? It’s just like a relationship, what was the last thing you did to make your baby act like that? Is it hangry? Upset tummy?
There’s no real specific smell but what it shouldn’t smell off. Sour? Yes! Off? No! A young starter will smell like flour (or dough ) but as it progresses it will be sour , vinegar reminiscent and can really make ya wink ;) but shouldn’t make you gag. I’ve had some that hit you in the back of your throat and I’ve always decided, baby needs a clean and isn’t happy with me so I need to give a bath and a feed.
A good resolution is to always just take maybe 15g ( or less depending how bad it smells) and do a 50g flour/ 50g water mix to get it off to a good start. I like to use some of my mature starter since that’s where you’re going to get a good base for a strong starter.
I like to use a plastic bag ( I still have some single use and they’re actually so good for using to cover food/ sourdough baking) to cover my starter. I use to have it in a jar and loosely cover with a lid. I found that whenever I would peer in and have a sneaky sniff it would come alive once exposed more to air. Once I used a plastic bag it became more active and happy since, I had lost the lid and always loosely kept it on but I think my baby needed a bit more breathing space.
