Is this mold or is it a very weird hooch?
So I left this in the fridge for a couple months. It’s made with rye flour now but it has had other flours since March when I started it. It doesn’t have a bad smell. It just smells like sourdough. And I’ll admit it was a little dryer and I should’ve added more water cuz the rye flour before the fridge but oh well.
I scrapped off the top and used what was underneath and transplanted it to another jar. i used a different spoon each time to not contaminate it. And then I refer it. It was slow but it grew and I see some active bubbles. Though they’re not big but I expected it to be sluggish after the fridge.
can sourdough starter be active even with mold particles? Or is it if I see growth it’s all good?
I have a dried backup but that probably won’t be ready for a few more days to a week of feedings at least.
this is where we are at:
this is where we are at right now
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I've done what you did and rescued the starter below. Ultimately mine didn't taste right and I tossed it, but keep going for a few days and see what happens.
And did yours grow even though you had that? It wasn’t fuzzy or a weird color. I’m making something with it today but it’s chocolate cake so it’ll probably mask everything. I’ve been feeding it since Friday and it looks great with great air bubbles but still doesn’t have a bad smell. It smells how it usually does.
Mine never smelled right again but it was neglected by me for weeks in the fridge and there wasn't much good starter underneath.
For what it's worth, I recovered a rye starter that had been sitting in the refrigerator for six months. I scraped away the unsightly blackish top -- it was totally black -- worse than the photo in your post -- and fed the shiny grey-brown stuff below in a new clean jar. It took only a few days to bubble and rise and fall ... but it took about two weeks before it began to get its usual smell back. I started out feeding it 1:3:3. My idea was to flush the old flour with lots of food. But after a few days, though it tasted sour, it started to smell sweet and flour-ish. So I tightened up to 1:1:1 for a few days and the starter began to smell right.