Appreciation post: My sourdough starter died in a Chicago heatwave

It was last July, over 100 degrees in my apartment kitchen. I came back from a weekend trip and found my starter, 'Bubbles', completely flat and smelling like nail polish. I'd had it for five years. Panic set in. I tried feeding it with cool water and a bit of rye flour, but nothing. So I took a tiny scrap from the edge, maybe a teaspoon, and mixed it with 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour in a new jar. Put it in the coolest corner I had. Two days later, I saw a single bubble. Kept at it with small feeds every 12 hours. A week later, it was back to doubling. Taught me to always keep a dried backup. Anyone else bring a starter back from the brink?

3 comments

3 Comments

jadeg812mo ago

Felt that deep in my soul. Lost a starter named Doughy to a power outage a few years back. That single bubble comeback is the most nerve-wracking thing to watch. Good on you for sticking with the small feeds, most people would have tossed it. The dried backup lesson is a hard one to learn the easy way.

nora5352mo ago

What finally got mine going again, @jadeg81? I switched to feeding it with whole rye flour for a few days. That seemed to give it a stronger boost than my usual bread flour, and it came back to life faster than I expected. It's worth a shot if you're ever in that spot again.

joseph4481mo ago

Funny thing about that nail polish smell, I had a batch of kombucha go the same way once. Left it in the sun while trying to save space and it turned into a vinegar bomb that smelled like a nail salon. Ended up having to dump the whole thing and start over with a fresh scoby from a friend. At least with sourdough you can scrape a tiny speck and rebuild it, which is honestly more than I can say for my kombucha experiment.