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I’ve been working on growing a sourdough culture from scratch for almost 4 weeks now. I have looked into multiple websites including this one for troubleshooting advice and have tried different things so as you can probably guess I’m a bit confused and slightly frustrated with the process. I don’t want to give up though. So after dumping twice what I thought was dead starter I went back to the discards from my original started that was in the refrigerator and began the process of reviving it based on Cultures for Health website using 1 part starter, 8 parts flour to 5 parts water and feeding every 12 hours for about 3 days. My starter became very bubbly but not frothy or rising. I thought because it was bubbly that I could move to feeding it regularly so I went to 1:1:1 ratio using 50g of each and feeding every 8-10 hours for the last 1 1/2 days. I still have bubbles, but still no rise or froth. I realized today I might be feeding it too often. I’m using whole grain rye flour and intend on making an ancient grains sourdough with organic spelt flour. The spelt flour is costly so I don’t want to make the bread to soon and wasting my spelt flour if it comes out terribly. Do I just need to continue feeding and waiting or could it possibly be ready without the rise? Any advice would be great! enter image description here

Cali Suburban Farm Girl
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  • I see gas in the bottom of the glass so that, to me, looks like a growing culture. Take one tablespoon of that, a tablespoon of wheat or rye flour, a tablespoon of AP or bread flour, a tablespoon of water, mix that altogether and see what happens in 12 hours at room temperature. What is your room temperature? – Rob Aug 30 '19 at 18:15
  • My room temp is usually anywhere from 72-79F. I’ve been keeping it in the oven without the light off just to keep it a consistent temp but I don’t have a thermometer to verify that. I had one of my prior starters in the oven with the light on and I think it got too hot. I will try your suggestion using some of the Spelt flour for the T of bread flour. If it rises does that mean it’s ready and I can move on to the next step for baking? – Cali Suburban Farm Girl Aug 30 '19 at 18:27
  • It would seem that way. Let us know. – Rob Aug 30 '19 at 19:25
  • OK so I did what you said and nothing. Still no rise. It’s been almost 12 hours. So now what? – Cali Suburban Farm Girl Sep 01 '19 at 04:16
  • I did notice when I went to feed my starter that it had a slight fruity beer smell to it! So that’s exciting I think, right? – Cali Suburban Farm Girl Sep 01 '19 at 05:15
  • I've never seen a starter recipe that fed the culture more often than once every 24 hours, FWIW. – FuzzyChef Sep 02 '19 at 18:54
  • @FuzzyChef in my research of trying to understand this process, I've seen multiple sites that have said you should feed Rye starter, specifically, every 12 hours and sometimes sooner. After my last post I started stirring every 3-4 hours as I have also read that this can help get the yeast active. By the end of the next 12 hour period, I had a rise of 25%. Today I had it doubled in size within 4 hours, I stirred and it rose again to double it's size. How many times should it double before I can start baking? – Cali Suburban Farm Girl Sep 03 '19 at 06:21
  • Beats me, I grew my sourdough using a very different process. – FuzzyChef Sep 04 '19 at 05:28

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