Picture this: you wake up one morning and go to check your Amish Friendship Bread starter. And you see … THIS:
Okay, maybe that doesn’t look so bad. Let’s try another angle.
Ew, right? Have no fear, it only means that your starter has separated, and it’s your job to bring it back together.
Fortunately the solution is simple: it needs to be stirred. I know this may seem obvious, but when you looking at a separated starter for the first time, your brain ceases to function. It just looks so-not-right. You’re convinced something is wrong and might even be tempted to pour it down the drain.
HOLD YOUR HORSES and give it a chance. First give it a stir, scraping down the sides and bottoms.
After a few turns with the wooden spoon, your starter will now look familiar and happy again.
Disaster averted. Leave your starter to do its thing and remember to give it another stir later in the day. One to two stirs a day will usually do the trick, incorporating everything together so your starter will be ready for action when you are.
If you’re seeing a lot of liquid and also noticing a bit of an acetone-like smell, it may also mean that the balance of milk, flour, sugar and fermented goodness is off. In that case, before you give it a stir, pour off some of the excess liquid (which is actually acidic liquid that’s produced after the bacteria has burned through all the sugars in your starter) and then jump over to this tutorial for how to remedy that.
>> Check out more tutorials here.
>> Post a picture of your starter on Facebook here or add it to our starter gallery by submitting it here.
I Added the milk, sugar, flour on the the wrong day, will it be ok?
Yes, in fact, it’s probably happier that you’re feeding it more often, Cynthia! 🙂 Just adjust the calendar moving out, and you’ll be fine.
I really messed up. So, to start it off I added water to my day 5 feeding instead of milk. It separated. I panicked before I saw this post and fed it another two tablespoons each milk, sugar, and flour. It has never been really active. I have tasted it and it tasted fine. I’m waiting to see if it picks up at all. I have a fairly drafty kitchen and leave it in the oven with the pilot light on. I also have to state that I didn’t start my starter using yeast, this is one reason I feel it might not be real active. Have I messed up enough the starter is trash? Sometimes these sourdough starters aren’t easy.
Hi Michelle,
I feel for you, I do! It’s hard to start a starter from scratch, and if your starter was never active to begin with, it’s really hard to “revive” it to a more bubbly state. At this point, unless you are really married to this starter, I would just start from scratch and use commercial yeast to give your starter a strong start. Go through a couple rounds of feedings to get it nice and robust, and maybe tuck a cup away in your freezer (usually when it’s at its most active state, the first 24 hours after a feeding) as backup. If you want to try to make this starter work, you need to give you starter a good Day 6 feeding — 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar. Since you already gave it 1 cup water, then just add the flour and sugar, and keep it covered and draft free. Keep me posted — good luck!
Thank you so much for your quick reply! I think it’s probably time to divorce the starter and start from scratch using your suggestions. It seems to continue with this one is a waste of materials. With any luck the new starter will work. I don’t know why any type of sourdough starter gives me such trouble. I can bake bread of almost any other type and consider myself an intermediate baker, but I just can’t get the sourdoughs down yet. However, I just say, that with people like you who are willing to help and inspire it keeps people like me trying. Thank you so much for your blog and support.
My 8 year old made two batches for her 4H group, but did them one day apart. Well she accidentally mixed up the bags, and did a “Day 6 addition” to the same bag twice. She added the milk, flour and sugar to it on day 6 and day 7. What should we do from here?
Hi Casey,
While it’s possible to overfeed a starter, the real answer lies in what the starter is doing now. Did it get bubbly and happy? If so, keep stirring daily and don’t worry about it, it’s most likely the fine. If it didn’t do anything, or smells different from before, throw it out — sometimes if the ratio of sugars to yeast gets thrown off with overfeeding and the yeast can’t thrive and metabolize the sugars. I would wait the full four days before feeding and dividing — she’ll have more starter left over, but if it’s bubbly and active, she’ll be fine. It helps to label the bags (with the specific days she needs to feed them). Let me know what you end up doing and how it turns out! best, Darien
Can I use my sour dough bread starter with this?
I made my first batch. I have 2 loaves cooking and 5 bags. Do I refrigerate the bags until ready to use? Also, do I keep you bag and continue the 10 day process to keep it going?
Hi Melanie! You would freeze the bags unless you plan to bake in 10 days, in which case you would have to feed all 5 bags (and leave on the counter, not the fridge). Putting it in the fridge slows down the fermentation process but doesn’t stop it like freezing does. If you know you want to bake again but don’t want to bake immediately, I recommend freezing all of the bags and take one bag out the day before you want to bake.