Rye Starter- smell?
I have a rye starter going, it has been fed every 12 hours for the last week. Then I put it in the fridge about 3 days ago. The rye starter was converted from a firm white starter that is very healthy. I took it out last night to build up to make a jewish deli rye. When I unscrewed the lid, the acetone smell was really strong. I realize that a rye starter will smell/taste different than a white, but seriously, the smell burned my nose. Is this a bad thing? I built it up last night and the starter has nice "islands" on the top and is domed, smells good and mild.
I have heard that there can be a build-up of a certain bacteria (?) or acid that can give it an acetone-like smell. Just wondering if this is normal with rye starters or not. Was it the refrigeration that amplified the smell, build up of gasses in the jar?
-The rye starter has been refreshed using 10g starter/25g water/ 45g whole rye flour.
Thanks in advance for any input.
of a feeding when it went in to the refrigerator. Better to put it in sooner. Have you looked up acetone in the on site search box?
Sounds like you've got your starter up and running. It will be alright as long as you give it enough food. Put it into the fridge sooner, like 3 hours after mixing. Sooner if your room temperature is warm or above 75°F. Rye starters tend to be more active than wheat starters and eat up the food sooner.
Mini
Once it's sane it will smell *very* good, something resembling very ripe fruit. Differently from all other starters, rye sourdough has this unique feature that makes me love it even more. When I kept it outside the fridge I often found myself sniffing it ;)
Yes, I did look in the archives for acetone- but most of the threads were pointing to underfeeding. I didn't think that pertained to my situation because it had been fed regularly. Now, I know that it was still an underfeeding problem- that it had ran out of food before putting it into the fridge.
Lesson learned: Don't put your rye starter in the fridge hungry.
Thanks.
What is the highest temperature that my rye starter can tolerate? I had it in the oven - out of drafts - and my husband accidentally turned on the oven to cook dinner, not knowing my starter was hiding out. Oh he feels horrible. Any way to salvage the starter or has it ended before it really got started?
Thanks,
Kathleen
There's nothing that rye loves more than heat, but without exceeding.
To know if it's still alive feed it and see what happens.
Hi Kathleen- you might want to open a separate forum topic for your question. You'd probably get more responses that way :-)
As for your starter- ugh! I don't know. I would try to salvage it by feeding it and see what happens but usually high heat kills. Sorry.
or is there some liquid still left? It could be that at the very center there are surviving beasties. I would try to feed them first.
Next topic would be how to put sticky notes all over the kitchen to keep your next starter from getting zapped or dumped. Poor hubby, he will now eat your first sourdough loaf no matter what it tastes like. Here's hoping it's a good one!
Mini