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Burnt my first sourdough starter so bad my wife made me keep it outside
Last month I left my starter on the radiator overnight and came back to this crusty black sludge that smelled like a brewery fire. Has anyone else managed to kill a starter in a creative way or am I the only one?
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henry1011mo ago
Man, the radiator story hits way too close to home... I did something similar but with a heat lamp setup in the winter, thought I was being smart keeping it warm but ended up cooking it into this weird tar-like substance. The smell alone should have been my first clue, it was like burnt toast mixed with old beer left in the sun. My wife threatened to ban me from the kitchen for good after that one. Yours being banished to the outdoors is honestly the perfect ending to that story.
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lee.lucas1mo ago
Burnt toast and old beer is actually a pretty good description for that specific failure point, I've smelled it before. One thing nobody's talking about is how the moisture content in the starter changes as it gets too warm, the yeast basically suffocates in its own sweat before it turns to tar. That heat lamp trick works if you're careful about distance and use a dimmer switch, but most people just crank it full blast and wonder why things go wrong. Your wife threatening a kitchen ban is basically a rite of passage for anyone who gets serious about fermentation.
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