Keeping a Starter Through the Rainy Season

The rainy season arrived very early in Kyushu this year — the earliest on record, apparently. Yet while there have been plenty of cloudy days, there has been little actual rain. And the cicadas were already going by the start of July. Having lived in Kansai until moving to Fukuoka this year, I keep being surprised at how different the conditions are within what is supposedly one country.

Working from home, you stop moving almost entirely unless you make a point of it. My head may still feel young, but now that I am in my forties it has begun to seem unwise not to keep some physical strength. Lately I have taken to walking for about thirty minutes each morning on the mountain right behind the house. That keeps me at roughly 5,000 steps a day. I would like another few thousand to average ten, but the time is hard to find, so stretching when I get back has become part of the routine.

Today I got caught in the rain while walking and came home soaked. Standing in it, I thought: the starter has been sitting neglected. Time to bake again.

Feeding log

· Weather

Previous feeding: 29 June
Date: 9 July
Weather: Rain
Room temperature：28℃
Humidity：70%

· Observations

Appearance: The surface of both starters, rye and bread flour, has dried. The rye one has some whitish patches. Mould?
Smell: An acidic smell, as of fermentation progressing, but nothing that smells of rot or mould.

Scoop off and discard the dried top of each starter. Removing the whitish, mould-like patch from the rye one, the inside looks like a perfectly normal starter.

· Ingredients

Bread flour (Kitanokaori) 30g
Rye flour 30g
Water 60cc (30cc each for the bread flour and rye starters)

The world of fermentation, the world of microbes, is genuinely strange. What is actually going on in there? As far as sourdough starters go, two or three weeks in the fridge will not spoil one. Discard the top half of a neglected starter, feed it flour and water, stir, and leave it at room temperature, and within a few hours it swells back up into a starter you can bake with again.