Sometimes it feels like the weeks just sprint by. We’ve been caught up with our day jobs, building a new home, friends’ birthdays and the rest. When life gets busy it can be hard to catch up. Not surprisingly, our sourdough bread making has taken a back seat.
I posted about our foray into homemade sourdough bread last month and you can re-visit that post here.
Our sourdough starter was in a pretty bad state due to inactivity. Serious sluggishness. After a while, starters will start to smell sour whether you are using your starter regularly or not. This happens due to the natural build-up of organic acids in the starter.
Once a month or when your starter is smelling too vinegary, it is a good idea to purge it. You do this by throwing away all of your starter except for 1-2 tbs. Add the 1-2 tbs in a new clean container along with 100g of rye flour and 150g of water. Give this a good stir and leave somewhere warm. The mixture will ferment and become bubbly when it is ready.
Our starter was in a bad way. Not only did it smell really sour but it had also separated with a brown liquid on top. This means our starter was feeling neglected. Guilty as charged.
To purge our unloved starter, we fed the remaining 1-2 tbs with 50g of rye flour and 75g of water. We stirred it, let it ferment in a warm place and then repeated the whole process again. Threw away half of it, re-fed it and let it do its thing. We did this 3 times over the course of a couple of days and voila – our starter was back to its old self again.
Hi, I tried this method of purging. After 12 hrs, still no activity. Do I repeat the purging process despite no activity or wait til I see bubbling and slide marks?
Thanks for this. I made my first sourdough starter (and loaf) last week and the starter did indeed get neglected!! Now I know how to remedy, thanks!
You’re welcome Jo – happy baking!