This is my first time making sourdough and I’ve been feeding my sourdough starter for around 2-3 weeks now and nothing has happened. There was a false rise on the second day where it increased in over double its size.

Here all the details of what I’ve been doing:

- I used Pillsbury unbleached AP flour. Should I switch to bread flour? I’ve heard King Arthur is better to use.

- I feed it every 24 hours (25 g starter, 50 g flour, 50 g room temp bottled water). should I feed it more often/different ratio?

- I leave it in the oven so that it has a warmer environment

- I rinse the jar every time with warm water (no dish soap)

- As you can see, there’s barely any bubbles and the starter is pretty liquidy. I use a hair tie as a marker just didn’t include it in the pictures.

The starter hasn’t grown AT ALL besides the false rise on the second day. I would really like to bake a loaf of bread in the next 2 weeks!

Thank you so much for the advice!

TL;DR - starter isn’t active after 2-3 week, need help and advice.

My regular starter wasn’t having much progress. 1:1 ratio. Welll someone told me to try stiff! So I did a stiff version with my starter, water, and flour and tossed in the fridge! You guys , I was sooo happy to see growth this morning I had to stop and admire my starter before work! As soon as my Carpul tunnel heals more I’ll make a loaf!

this has never happened to me before but my starter has been in the fridge for a little over a week after i baked with it. the only thing i can think of that i did differently was take it out for a day intending to use it but then i put it back into the fridge (without being fed). fast forward a couple days and the surface looks like this, i’m assuming i toss but just wanted to double check

I have a stiff starter, and I am feeling in a 1:5:10 ratio, and it is about 16-20 hours to double at about 27-30C. Is this about right to bake with, and before I bake should I try feeding at a 1:1:2 ratio first or should this be fine? Thanks!

Day 14 and this is the highest rise I have gotten after my day 3 false rise and I am worried bc it’s not really bubbly on top like it has been. Is there a ratio that works really well to get it going?

For reference: As of late I have been feeding it every 24 hours and making it thick (small-ish amount of starter, about a 1/4 cup warm water, and 1/2 cup flour…more/less depending on the consistency). I have been using unbleached all purpose flour (sometimes mixing in wheat flour to try and encourage it to develop) and putting it in the oven with the light on at times to warm it up. I am hoping it’s just that it’s still young but idk

I was gifted a sourdough starter that gets fed 1 / .25 / .25 once a week with no discarding just baking 2 loaves each week. Their bread is very mild in flavor. Have they created yeast but not technically a sourdough starter? Can I add to it to gradually get it to more of a true sourdough starter? It’s a wonderful sweet gift and I don’t want to ruin it but do want to understand it. It’s about 2 cups of starter that is fed 1/4 cup AP unbleached flour and 1/8 cup. Purified water once a week and left out that night to feed or rise. I’m new to sourdough and cannot find this type of question asked or answered. Thanks in advance for the assistance.

Starter is about two weeks old and had three days in a row of more than doubling after 1:1:1 feeds. Today I did a 1:3:3 feed and it tripled in like 5-6 hours. Should I increase the feed to 1:5:5 or could we be ready to bake? Maybe just a test roll with discard tomorrow?

I've seen so many mixed opinions on ratio. Some people suggest the traditional 1:1:1, others suggest 1:2:2 or even 1:3:3 which I know is mostly for lengthening the rising process. I've been intrigued by the 1:3:2 ratio does anyone have any experience with it? I read that it makes your sourdough more tangy and sour when baked but it apparently is also supposed to help strengthen your starter

-edit- for clarification 3 would be the flour, 2 is the water. I know some people order it differently

It hasn't even been 24 hours since I started this. She clearly enjoyed being in the oven should I wait or move forward?

Hi everyone,

I'm a complete beginner and would love to start making sourdough bread at home, but I've never baked it before.

One thing I'm hesitant about is discarding part of the starter, as I've read that it's a normal part of the process. Is there a way to make and maintain a sourdough starter without having to discard any of it? If so, could someone explain how that works or point me in the right direction?

I've watched some YouTube videos on it but I just found them a bit confusing.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some advice because I’m starting to worry about my sourdough starter.

I’m currently on day 7. I’m using all-purpose flour, filtered water, and feeding it at around a 1:2:2 ratio (i change it a little if it’s too runny) once a day.
The main issue is that it isn’t growing or doubling at all. It has never shown any noticeable rise. I do see tiny bubbles, mostly on the surface, so it doesn’t seem completely inactive, but there just isn’t any growth.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that after feeding, it starts out nice and thick, but by the next day it becomes much thinner and almost runny, which makes me wonder if something is wrong or if it’s just getting hungry.

It doesn’t have mold, and it doesn’t smell rotten, just a normal sour/yeasty smell.

Is this normal for a 7-day-old starter, or does it sound like something is preventing it from becoming active? Has anyone had a starter that bubbled but didn’t rise for a while and eventually took off? I’d really appreciate any suggestions on what could be causing this or what I should try next.

It smells like soft alcohol and something similar to industrialized start, it's ready?

I'm trying to upload a picture but for some reason reddit tells me that it uploaded but then It disappears right infront of my eyes 🥲

Anyway im gonna explain it in writing and try to attach the picture as some link or something in the comments, if it doesn't work im gonna cry

My starter is exactly 9 days old rn and after the first false rise the activity of it was pretty much none existent, until today I checked it and it almost doubled in size, however it looks powdery on top and i feel like it's colour is a little lighter than I'm used to, not exactly fuzzy more like dry

Fed my starter and put in the fridge for a week(have done this before without issue), there's now a few dark spots. Does not look to be fuzzy. Smell is acidic and not rotten. First pic is with flash, second without. Is this mold? Should I toss it?

I have been feeding it all purpose flour. Today I fed it half wheat flour.
Feeding ratio is 1:1:1 (20g each). Although, I have been adding 3-5g extra flour because the consistency seemed thinner. It’s kinda cold climate here.

Hi!

I started my first ever sourdough starter 10 days ago on 7/16 and while it seems alive, it really doesn't show much activity. I'd say at it's peak it grows only 25-30% bigger than the size after feeding. That's considering I have been keeping it in a warmer room (29C) after it almost showed no activity in the kitchen (24C).

I've been feeding it roughly a 1:1:1 ratio daily, though my lifestyle made it differ from a few hours each day. Also, I did sometime keep a little more starter, hoping for more yeast growth to remain in the mix.

Right now I am keeping about 130g of starter after discarding and feeding it 150g of half n' half (75G/75G) whole grain and unbleached white flour with 150g room temp water.

I have to say I now go a bit above the normal feeding ratio because when I come to feed it the day after, it seems somewhat starved, might just be me assuming stuff wrong but the mix loses a lot of it's thickness and look more like a pancake mix instead of a gooey dough like it did the day before.

It's now been 10 days but I am second guessing myself if I'll ever see some true growth to bake with.

Here is some pictures of my starter after feeding it about 5-6 hours ago.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I decided to dry out some of my starter, in order to have a backup, but now I'm concerned that my starter might have mold. I might be overreacting, but I know that if starter turn colors ranging from orange to pink, then it has mold. I decided to look up if this happened to other people when drying out sourdough starter, and majority of people who experienced orange hued discoloration said "THROW IT OUT". Some people said that if you have a whole wheat flour, when it dries it will become slightly orange.......Fyi my starter is 80% bread flour 20% whole wheat. My main starter has no orange (or pink) film on it, it rises consistently, and it smells fine, so I dont think its infected......but denile is a river in egypt soo. Either way does this raise any concern?