My sourdough starter died after I forgot it in the fridge for 3 weeks

Pulled it out yesterday and it was straight up green on top. No amount of feeding was gonna fix that. Anyone else ever lost a starter to neglect and had to start from scratch?

3 comments

3 Comments

danielmartinez5d ago

Did you smell it first before you saw the green, or was it a total surprise when you opened the lid? I've heard that some people try to scrape off the mold and keep feeding, but with green stuff that deep there's really no saving it. I lost mine once after leaving it out on the counter for two weeks during a move, came back to a thick layer of black fuzzy stuff that smelled like old gym socks and rotten fruit mixed together. Just had to toss the whole jar and start a new one from scratch, which honestly hurt more than I expected.

verab285d ago

I read somewhere that pink mold actually has a smell like cat pee, which is weird.

quinn_nguyen1d ago

Yeah, that bit about pink mold smelling like cat pee sounds about right. I read somewhere that the pink stuff is actually a bacteria, not mold, and it gives off that weird ammonia smell. The green mold you're talking about is usually penicillium, which smells more like damp basement or wet cardboard to me. Scraping never works once it's that deep, the roots go way further than you think.