Fermentation Support Forum

I recently moved to San Francisco and have now tried a second time to make a sourdough (from instructions in Wild Fermentation).

Day 1: no activity.
Day 2 (!): lively, bubbly, frothy, clearly active, and nicely sour.
Day 3: No activity, *extremely* sour.
Day 4+: see Day 3.

I get the feeling it's so active that it ups the acid level rapidly and essentially kills itself. Is this a reasonable hypothesis? The first time, I tried to resuscitate it by using a small amount of it to seed a whole new flour-water slurry, but strangely it didn't take. This time I'm reluctant to tread the same ground.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I miss my sourdough baking and after all am living in THE hot-bed of yummy sourdough yeasts!

I've never tried to make sourdough, but I've had a similar thing happen when I make beer and the temp is too high.

Your sourdough is probably not completely "dead." As the acid levels go up and sugars go down the activity can slow rapidly.

Try feeding it a little, or use a spoonful to inoculate another batch of starter. I suspect it will pick back up again.

Have you tried actually baking bread with it?

I've been baking sourdough for years and in my experience you really can't tell until the loaf is out of the oven. I've had some really sketchy dead looking starter with a half inch of grog on top turn out some beautiful loaves. I've had starter that looked perfect in every way fail to rise and turn out hockey pucks.

I understand that the French bakers prefer using an "old" starter. The higher acidity helps develop a more complex flavor.