I think I killed it. My Sourdough Starter that is.

Haven’t fed it in 3 months or more. Been in the back of the fridge. Pulled it out yesterday, stirred the hooch back in, fed it with Rye flour and water and it has sat on the countertop for 20 hours and not budged. Fearing the worst.
Whaddaya think?

She’s dead, Jim.

Give it longer. You can prime with a little sugar, but I have had neglected ones take several days to get going.* I usually stir, divide and use a portion + fresh water and flour.

• Caveat - I really have no way to know if my starter revived or I created a wild one. The batches I worked with most recently have all been started with no yeasts added, so what “revived” on my counter could well have been a new version of the same thing, if that makes sense.

A.

I’ll give it some sugar when I get home. Holding out slim hope.

It’s alive! It’s ALIVE!! We came home to this beautiful sight. Thought she was a goner.

Want a list of bakeries in your area?

yeah, very difficult to kill. next time feed with plain bread flour.

Honestly it reacts better to the Rye flour than to bread flour and that’s why I started with it this time around.

I just pulled my 2nd starter (Ischia Island) our of the back of the fridge and it was marked last fed last September. It took about 3 days to get it going again, not in time for this weekend’s bake, but it smelled good the whole time and now it’s rocking. The ones I’ve had go bad smelled like old socks and rose really slowly.

Brian, if I were in your shoes is probably give it a good week or two of regular interval feedings, similar to when you first made the starter, before using it. Every year or two I freeze a small (50g or so) amount of starter I’ve dehydrated, just in case I actually do brain fart and kill my baby.

I recently made my first starter in over 20 years using the Sunset Magazine recipe. Low fat milk, plain yogurt and all purpose flour. First loaf of French sourdough was tasty but a bit dense. I need practice!

It took off after yesterday. Split and fed it last night. Split and fed again this morning and it was filling the jar in 2hrs.

Dough is finishing it’s first rise right now.

Pizza dough is proofing also.

Nice looking dough. I’ve got cinnamon raisin bread rising right now.

Something went wrong. I divided the dough into 3 batards and let them ferment for 3 hrs and the dough deflated.

Put the other two in the oven anyhow. Look pretty ugly. I scored one but the blade almost went all the way through so I left the other one be. They popped up a bit but look nothing like I remember. Pretty disappointed.

The pizzas were better but still not up to snuff. Rough day.

Bummer. My guess is the starter components (yeast and bacteria) just need time to get back to your ideal equilibrium. This is what I’ve got rising now, but given it’s an enriched recipe (butter, milk, etc) it tends to rise at a glacial pace. I’ll be up late tonight.

What time will the coffee be ready?

Baguettes!

Ha ha! Here’s some more for ya buddy
Ciabatta!

Looking good Rick!