What is the significance of a few green spots on the top of a new starter
1-2 days old? I have never seen this, and do not know if it is safe to
continue with this one, or start over.

Thanks in advance for all replies!

Randall Brink

Randall Brink wrote:

What is the significance of a few green spots on the top of a new starter
1-2 days old? I have never seen this, and do not know if it is safe to
continue with this one, or start over.

Thanks in advance for all replies!

Randall Brink

Can have many causes. What first comes to mind is starvation which may
have inhibited establishment of a regular sourdough culture.

If you could communicate approximate time schedule, amount of feedings
and temperature this possibility could either be considered or
discarded.

I have seen "green" spots - most likely mold - only in remains of
starters scrapings in a container left for a week or so at regular room
temperature.

Taking this as an example of what is a possibility was the death of the
sourdough organisms in the scrapings due to either starvation or over
souring. After they were gone, the mold was able to establish itself.

Another possibility is failure to establish due to overwhelming
sourdough "foreign" organisms. Under this viewpoint, it would be
interesting to know, what original material (flour, grain type, amount,
water) you used to grow.

As you see, just giving "1-2 days + green spots" leaves a lot of room
for speculation. There are at least 202 ways of growing a new starter
and many possibilities to be "inefficient" but have fun.

Did you take a closer look what they are, could it be that it is indeed
mold?

If it is mold, you can just take the spots out, continue feeding the
unknown schedule or start over from scratch. But since this happened
once, it may happen again if you repeat what you are doing.

Molds can be toxic but nothing is known about toxicity or infectious
influences from growing grain products into a starter but molds usually
don't appear in this process either.

Interestingly, ergot, a fungus on rye caused some major trouble and is
or was the basis for LSD.

So.... now you got a possible spectrum;-)

Samartha

--
remove -nospam from my email address, if there is one

Ignoramus8561 wrote:

my guess would be that you diluted the starter with new flour/water
too much. Does it look moldy?

More likely the opposite, I think.

David