Saturday, October 27, 2012

How Should Sourdough Starter Smell?

Any ideas?  Anyone?  It started out smelling a little yeasty - which is probably normal. Then it started smelling a little beer-like which again makes sense and is probably normal.    Today it smells a little like varnish...kind of like a very mild furniture varnish.  What does this even mean?  Is my dough-baby going to die? Are we all going to be sick if we eat varnishy bread?

I found a blog called A Feast For the Seasons in which it talks about varnish smell. Actually they refer to it as a nail varnish remover smell which is not quite where mine is.   According that blog "If your starter smells like nail varnish remover, then lower the storage temperature and, again, feed for a few days more."  

Really? I have to wait a few days more?  But I'm a very impatient compulsive obsessive individual.  When I want to do something I want to do it NOW! And I really wanted to get started on the bread-making process today.  I'm all excited because I found this great video on breadtopia.com about the no-knead sourdough method.  It takes 18 hours of rising and I wanted bread on Sunday.  What to do...what to do....

Is this what my starter is suppose to smell like?

Surely not THIS!

This is a lovely loaf indeed!  Shouldn't my sourdough starter smell more like this?

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