I was doing well….until I wasn’t

I’m going to start this week on a positive note because it’s going to go downhill real fast. I’ve decided to name my starter, Gerri. My kids like to name every random critter we find, Jerry, so I decided to go with their suggestion but changed it to Spice Girl spelling because this starter is going to be a strong woman! Or so I hope…

We were great friends, Gerri and I. I fed her religiously every 24 hours, just like the video suggested. By day 3, she was already getting close to doubling in size, which from what I’ve found online, means she was nearly an active starter. Then, after watching a TikTok video of Gigi feeding her starter regular bread flour, I decided that I’d switch from the whole grain rye flour I was using, to bread flour.

ig mistake! Huge! (anyone else get the Pretty Woman reference?). Gerri went from a strong, bubbly, starter, to a runny but still bubbly starter. I thought maybe I could save her, but after a few days something weird happened. She started to turn pink. I immediately set out on a quest to find out what was going on with her. According to Cultured Guru, there is a chance that my starter had grown a bad variety of bacteria**. With the fear of food poisoning still in my mind, I decided to throw Gerri out and start again.

**I wish this blog post would have provided pictures of what a bad starter looks like. The post does mention that starters that use rye flour (which I was using) can have a red tinge to them. Is that what mine was, or was I growing a colony of tiny bugs waiting to make me sick? I wasn’t entirely sure, hence why I decided to throw my starter out and try again. Being sick wasn’t worth the risk.

What am I going to do differently this time? For starters (ha, that’s punny), I’m using whole-grain rye flour exclusively while growing Gerri. I had great success up until I switched flours, so I’m hoping this solves the problem. With any luck, my post next week will include pictures of a delicious sourdough loaf and a recipe review. Cross your fingers, arms, legs, and eyes. I might need it…