Sourdough Again

 

For Christmas, I bought myself an enamel-coated cast iron Dutch oven. I've been wanting one to try some of the sourdough recipes that require it for baking. So, I'm back to making sourdough starter again. As my house can be rather chilly in the winter, I was keeping the jar of starter on my heated cat mat on the lowest setting. I decided to feed it with my rye flour, since mine was getting older and needed to be used up. This time, I was determined to really keep up with the discard. 

I made pancakes, 

biscuits,

bread,

and crumpets, converting them all to whole grain as much as possible. I still had about half a cup of discard in the fridge, when I decided that I didn't actually want to use just rye flour. Rye has a pretty strong and distinct flavour, which is not necessarily what I want in things like pancakes. So I switched to white for one "feeding" and then whole wheat for the next feeding.  But then I smelled a mold smell in the starter. I was hoping it was just the combination of flours that imparted an off smell - sourdough has a weird smell anyway, and it had been mostly rye flour, which also has a unique smell - so I fed it again and decided to see what happened. I also returned the jar to the top of the fridge, thinking that maybe it was too warm on the cat mat. But when I smelled it again prior to the next feeding, I could still smell mold. So, it got dumped in the compost, and I've started again, scrubbing the jar well, and bleaching the plastic lid (I've since been told that I should use peroxide instead of bleach, as peroxide destroys the spores and bleach does not). I was going to use the little discard I still had in the fridge to start a new batch, but it when I checked it, it had visible mold, so it joined the starter in the compost. Puzzling because when I made sourdough starter previously, I had both starter and discard in my fridge for months, and never had any mold.This time I used whole wheat, and have the jar on top of the fridge instead. I considered other options as newer fridges really don't get warm on top like older ones did. My hot water tank, which is one of the suggestions in the King Arthur sourdough recipe, is down in the basement, so not very practical for regular feedings... I have since discovered that there is actually an electric sourdough starter warmer available. I'll have to see how enthusiastic I become about sourdough to see whether or not I can justify the expense.