Not bad at all! Your loaves look lovely as ever.

But, Ann, if the one you tossed smelled like dead fish, it was just a phase. There are a bunch of organisms in there when you begin a starter and the good yeast vies for supremacy. The dead fish smell is from the unwanted micro-organisms decaying. If you just keep feeding it through that phase, it'll get all better after a few days. It's not harmful. Just smelly.

If it just smells like it's fermenting, it is. Just feed it and it'll be all better. If it's gray on top and/or throwing off potent liquid, it's just the result of the fermentation, and you can stir it in, or discard, and feed. It's also harmless, and nothing to be concerned about unless you're an alcoholic with low tolerance for triggers.

I learned something from my season of neglect as well. Darwinian survival. My starter is much stronger now. Even the 100% whole wheat one bounced back in the amount of time one might feed it up for baking. The amount that went right in the fridge puffed up a lot instead of going dormant immediately. That's a first. I also just left the discard in the measuring cup with plastic wrap over it because I was going to make biscuits.

Then I didn't make the biscuits and was starting to bake the daily bread that uses commercial yeast, and thought I might as well put it in that. It smelled very hoochy and hadn't risen at all, so I was thinking of it as flour and water. I was doing a soaker (to hydrate the whole grains and seeds) though, to get the time adjusted right for the Winter. Soak overnight, then add yeast and salt in the morning, and rise all day on the counter. I've tried leaving just the yeast but then the soaker is too dry to activate the yeast, so I put the salt container on top of the dough bowl lid so I won't forget. That evening, I was getting a bunch of work calls about taxes, and was distracted, and I put the "flour and water" many days discarded starter in the soaker. Well, I've never had such a rise with heavy bread and starter! And this was only about 50g of starter.

It was lofty and fluffy and moist! This bread needs salt, however, and it was too soft to just bake as is, so I stirred in the salt and some older commercial yeast, and put in a request to Linda C's bread angels that the gluten survive intact. I couldn't see a lot of evidence of broken gluten when I stirred, so held out hope. It rose again, if a bit slowly, but had no structure left, and even with support, it spread out instead of up. The crumb has a good texture, though, springy, most and with a proper hole structure. Even a few of the big holes you like, Ann. Just no height.

OTOH, it's delicious! The long soak with small amount of starter let it develop a real sourdough taste, though it's not as pronounced as I expected. It's good enough, however, that so long as I have enough washing water to spare, I'm going to experiment with adding starter to the rise, or maybe doing a pre-ferment.

So... old starter is good starter! I hope you'll be able to keep yours going this time. I did have to chuck my 100% rye starter, but once it has been transitioned to wheat, you should be able to keep it without it growing mold or anything. You probably do this too, but when I take it out to feed, I put it in a measuring cup and wash the jar it lives in with hot water, and give it a good scrub.

Thanks Plllog. I'm pretty familar with the good and bad of sourdough starters and recognize the difference between what is an acceptable "smell" and one that isn't.

I've been baking sourdough for about ten years now. First starter I kept going for s number of years. The last one that I neglected to the point of no return was two years old. To be honest, since I'm not really a big fan of sourdough bread to begin with, so I lose interest. My family, especially Matthew loves sourdough so I make it mostly for him and share it with friends. I do get a sense of satisfaction out of being able to bake bread from wild yeast without the addition of commercial yeast.

Hooch is something that usually develops if I let my starter go longer than 8 to 10 days. I don't care for it so I pour it off. It isn't necessary to keep it.

I know that my new starter is good and strong since it baked the above bread when it was only three to four days old. And without the addition of commerical yeast. The flavour is already quite developed.

I fed both starters again this morning before leaving for work. And I used the discard to make a rye preferment that will be going into a batch of rye bread that I will handmix tonight and probably bake on Monday.

This is what the starters looked like when I got home.

One fed with white and one with rye.

and the rye preferment had more than doubled.

Ah. I get it now. Ann, I thought you had been doing it quite a bit longer than I but you didn't seem into it, so I thought maybe you were one of those bakers who just makes a new starter every so often. I remember you starting a previous one. So, hopefully the information may be useful to a lurker--my only excuse for the overshare.

I love the green bubbles on your dough bucket. I bet that makes it easier to check the levels. My bread bowl has a repeating geometric like that, but I only use it for challah. It's too big otherwise, and it's easier to see how a slow rise is working if one can see the bubbles through the sides.

Re flavor, you probably know this too, but the sourness comes from less starer + longer rise. The sourness is just what the daily bread needed for a little kick. I may go for even more sour next time, like a San Francisco. :)

AnnT, the bread is beautiful, in any event.

Like you, I'm not a huge fan of sourdough, although Elery loves it. As a result I've made a couple of starters and after a while woefully neglected them to the point of no return. My last one never "started", and I haven't tried one since. I suppose I ought to....

Annie

Annie, I don't know which starter you have used in the past. But you can't go wrong following the instructions from Amy's Bread. It is a "pure" starter. Just rye flour and bottled water. Nothing else. No grapes, pineapple juice or any other unnecessary ingredients. AND definitely no commercial yeast. What you will end up with is a pure wild yeast starter.

AnnT, I used a starter from instructions I got at King Arthur Flour, it contains only 1 cup of rye or whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup of water. I used rye flour from Bob's Red Mill, since I couldn't get any fresh stuff here. The first couple of times it was fine, and the instructions called for feeding the starter with white flour. The starter that never "started" was while I was still in the White Cloud house. I tried it during the winter sometime, when I was bored with being indoors, but I think that my house temp being at 55F all the time wasn't warm enough. As a result, the starter did nothing at all.

After that we moved to the farm, are remodeling this house, sold two other houses, Elery had a hip replaced, Ashley had a stroke, Bud has started having seizures and I haven't even thought of sourdough. Until now.

Annie

Annie, with all you have to deal with I'm not sure I would ever be ready to think about sourdough. How are Bud and Ashley doing? Are the seizures under control now?

Ashley is having only intermittent seizures and they are increasingly less severe, but now she has shingles. (sigh) Poor Bud has had a constant progression of having his medication increased. Last week he had five seizures on Sunday, before his neurologist appointment on Monday. He's now scheduled for a 24 hour EEG in March, so I'll be spending the night in the doctor's office along with he and Amanda. Some of the tests involve things like flashing lights, which will cause Amanda to have a seizure, so she can't be with him for those, but she still has to be THERE, because they require a parent. So, it appears that I'm the only one healthy enough to deal with everything. Did I mention that stepmother is going on dialysis? That the doc is now urging Elery to get his knee replaced? That Ashley is being referred to the Mayo Clinic? And so I bake bread.

Annie

Annie, thanks for the update. I didn't realize that Ashley was also having seizures. Will keep everyone in my thoughts.

Sourdough Rye came out of the oven late last night.

Extremely happy with this bread.

Great flavour and even a little shine to the crumb.

Sliced this morning for breakfast.

Made Moe poached eggs on Rye.

Oh, yum, those eggs look delicious.

Ashley is apparently having seizures due to migraine headaches, or so the doctors think. One medication for the migraines interacted with some medication she was taking for the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome she was having in her arm after surgery to repair a tendon issue and that caused the seizures. So now the pain doc is working with the neurologist who is working with the heart guy because of the hole in her heart. They haven't figured out much of anything, so her GP is going to refer her to Mayo Clinic. And now she has shingles. I just can't believe that all these neuro/nerve things aren't connected, somehow, and her GP believes the same thing. Hence, the referral. Meanwhile, she's working at her Dad's store, and trying to get healthy again, and lobbying the heart doc to close the hole in her heart. He says "only" 25% of patients go on to have another stroke if the heart isn't repaired, but she doesn't like those odds and I don't either.

Annie

Annie, lots of good thoughts for Ashley and Bud.

Ann, that rye is my kind of bread!