Day 4 of making my starter per Forkish's method. Yesterday it made it up to the 2 qt mark and his instructions say it should be the same today, but as you can see, it's falling short. I put it in our outdoor laundry room yesterday because he said the ideal temp for it is between 75 and 90 F. I'm wondering whether that may have given the yeast a heat stroke. What say you all?
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Did I kill my levain?
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Direct answer? Probably not. Yeast grows best at about 84F. So, unless you stuff them in a 110F room, they're probably fine.
What happens with a new starter is that you get a burst of activity, mostly from organisms we don't want. Then, sometimes, those die off as the starter becomes more acidic... but the bacteria and yeast we do want like acidic environments, so they start to grow. But there can be a pause in activity between the two phases.
How are you feeding it? How often? What water?Last edited by rickgregory; June 30, 2022, 08:56 AM.
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I'd just repeat the "Day 3" instructions and not store it in such a warm location. If it restarts, give it a smell and if it seems ok, proceed from there. Otherwise, ditch it before wasting more time and ingredients and just start over.
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I threw it out. When I went to deal with it the next day it was kind of clear to me that there was no activity and the smell was really unpleasant. It may well have been fine, but I lost confidence in it so there was no point in continuing. I'm on day 3 of my new batch.
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