Mike Avery wrote:
>
> ...And I was so sure it'd never happen to me...
> ...All of which means.. the culture was as liquid as water. And when we
> added flour.... it never firmed up. It was... scary.

I sure know that feeling. It is even worse when the culture does
not respond to recovery treatment.

>
> In the end, recovery was easy. We took a tablespoon of the culture.
> Added 1/2 a pound of water and 1/2 a pound of flour. Eight hours later,
> another 1/2 pound of each. Eight hours later a pound of each. And we
> had the happy starter we had once enjoyed back again.

You were lucky. I have found that when there are many foamy tiny
pinpoint bubbles the start will usually recover even if it takes
longer in treatment than your starter did. When it goes straight
to soup with no bubbles other than those caused by stiring, the
odds are against you. I have had to renew the mother culture
with frozen back up when cursed with the gluten disolving state.

I have managed to convince myself that my worst case was caused
by bad flour. It is easier for me to accept that than to
contemplate the possibility that I may have somehow angered a
Bread Faerie. I changed my procedure for feeding the mother
culture so that I get it active before any large dilution to
lessen the chance of having the culture overwhelmed by invasive
critters.

I think it is a fairly rare problem. I don't hear of it very
often, at least.

Regards,

Charles

--
Charles Perry
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