FollowCass has to do a Biology experiment on food fermentation and she chose to experiment with making sourdough.
The yeast was made from scratch using flour and water. After a few days, I woke up one morning to a terrible stench. It smelled like rotten fish, dead animal and socks that have not been washed for a year. I was looking everywhere around the house to find the source of the rotting smell until I saw Knox on the dining table!
Cass named her ‘baby’ Knox, made on 22 September 2021.
Today we transferred Knox out of the house to the balcony. We could still smell the stench of Knox and at times, it smelled of cow dung 🤮
Does a sourdough starter even smell like this? Can a sourdough expert enlighten us? 😁
No. of times viewed = 87
Try burning a candle ( doesn’t need to be scented) to get rid of the smell. Of course it must be under constant supervision. May take 2-3 hours. I always light a candle when cooking.
Just think of the delish sourdough bread you will soon enjoy!😁
Ooh, I never knew a burning candle can do the trick in removing odors! Thanks for the tip!
BTW, did your sourdough starter stink like ours? lol
Sourdough starter is not supposed to smell bad. Is Cass discarding some before feeding and also feeding regularly? That’s how you strengthen the starter so that when you finally bake the bread, the starter will expand and you will get a nice lofty loaf of bread.
Hi Su
Yes, Cass discarded some before feeding it with more flour everyday at the same time.
With a little Knox left, she continued feeding it but sadly, it didn’t rise this time round.
So she discarded Knox yesterday and will start to grow a new starter tomorrow 😅
Sounds like Knox got a bad case of infection. All the best to Cass in making a new starter. In the summer months, I feed mine twice a day and in the winter I can get away with one feeding a day. It also helps if she uses a scale to weigh her water and flour equally. To slow the starter, add a bit more flour to water and to speed the growth, do the reverse. Can’t wait to see her sourdough bread!!
Hi Su
Yes, Cass weighed the flour and water each time she fed Knox. But somewhere something must have gone wrong. Maybe the weather was too hot. Really not sure what went wrong though. Thanks for the tips. I’ll tell Cass that. Thank you! 🙂
I am looking at the photo of Knox again. Is there a lid shut tight on the container? I cover mine with a piece of cling wrap so that the starter can breathe.
After so many years of baking sourdough, I am still learning and it’s fun! I named my starter Meme (cos I told me kids it should be pronounced Me Me and not Mim)! 😂
Hi Su
The lid is not shut tight. She just placed the lid loosely on top of the bottle.
Just now Cass realized that Knox’s infection could be due to warm water (or maybe even quite hot) that she used. She suddenly remembered her Bio teacher telling them that hot water will impede the starter from rising. So for her new starter, which she named Enoxella 2.0, she used tap water. And her new baby’s doing great so far. It’s rising and it doesn’t smell like some dead animal! 😁