Sourdough starter smells moldy/rotten

5 posts / 0 new
Last post
dk's picture
dk
Offline
Joined: 2011-11-01 23:14
Sourdough starter smells moldy/rotten

Two days ago I made my first attempt at making a sourdough starter, Annalise.  When I went to feed it for the first time I took off the plastic wrap and a horrible mold/rotten smell came from the starter.  I used half bread flour and half unbleached whole wheat flour as shown in the video on this site.  There were spots on top of the starter that looked like they could possibly be mold so I took them out when I fed her.  However, the smell is coming from the entire starter, not just the "spots" I removed.  There are some bubbles but not a whole lot, It's sitting on the counter but our room temperature isn't very hot since I'm living in South Dakota right now.  I assume the lowish temperature explains why there are only a few bubbles, but is that also the reason for the smell.  I saw the other forum topic about the starter smell but mine does not smell acidic at all.  By the way, I did not add anything to my starter to bring yeast in.  What should a sourdough starter smell like?