Tried making sourdough starter from scratch and my kitchen smelled like a barn for 3 days straight

I fed it twice a day for a week, and on day 6 it grew this weird pink crust that my neighbor said looked like a science experiment gone wrong, has anyone else had a starter just completely fail for no reason?

3 comments

3 Comments

wadejenkins21d ago

Pink crust means it's spoiled. Toss that whole batch and start over with a clean jar.

michael80319d ago

Fair enough but @hannahj49 and I have both scraped off some questionable stuff before and it turned out fine. Sometimes people get too paranoid about a little discoloration that's just from the salt or whatever.

hannahj4921d ago

Wadejenkins knows what's up here. I learned this lesson the hard way when I thought I could just scrape off the pink and save the rest. Turned out my "saved" batch smelled like a gym sock and I had to toss the whole jar anyway. You'd think after three ruined ferments I'd learn to just start fresh like Wade says.