Thank you, that gives some more insights what is happening. I have to
admit that I am not a MB expert, just that I had mold growing recently.
What I did was to disinfect the fridge and use new containers and the
bread I did with the starters turned out fine - no mold taste (so far).
And - the container lids were not closing tight due to material stuck at
the sealing surfaces, the starter inside got dried out on the surface, I
had a cheese experiment going with gorgonzola - it all made sense.
Yours seems to be a harder case.
Interestingly, I am just reading a book on mushroom cultivation and boy,
aren't sourdoughler's lucky with sourdough. There it seems to be a
constant struggle against intrusion of other organisms and just a matter
of time until something happens, sterile everything, kids out!
The author specifies principle sources of contamination:
- cultivator
- air
- media
- tools
- inoculum
- mobile contamination units (ants, flies, mites....)
So, according to that, nothing seems to be excluded from being a
possible contamination source. Doesn't help much....
Normally, I would think that starters are generally immune from getting
infected and it seems to be true to a high degree.
Since you mentioned that your husband's starter was started fairly
recently, it may give you some indication. Starting a starter is a
"weeding out" of a lot of other organisms with the sourdough's player
remaining. One would think that at that time, any "mold" was defeated
since it did not grow initially.
If this is the case, what has changed?
Another indication is the mold you saw inside. But - mold spores are in
the air, why were they able to manifest?
Is your starter sour - i. e. tasting sour and is the sourness increasing
as you let it grow outside the fridge? Can you determine the phases of
high activity followed by a decrease of activity with increased
sourness? I would think that the starter's sourness along with the
alcohols and what else they produce should protect if the environment is
to their liking.
Now, saving starter by drying or freezing could work. There are
descriptions in the FAQ. But in any case, does that help you? Reviving a
starter either from a frozen or dried state makes it vulnerable.
I think, finding and eliminating the cause for the weakness that the
mold can infest the starter would solve the problem. It worked for 8
years, what has changed after that time period?
Good luck,
Samartha
Maria wrote:
>
> Thanks for your insights.
>
> I will go into more detail: I had 2 starters, 1 that I have had now for
> about 8 years (very sad to have to lose it), and another that my husband
> started about 6 months ago. My husband's went mouldy about a month ago, and
> mine a few weeks later. Note, I am careful not to let them contaminate each
> other. We alternate, each gets used once every week or two. I feed them
> all-purpose flour and rainwater.
>
> I store my starter in jars in the fridge. They seal well as far as I know,
> but maybe not well enough? I DO have blue cheese in the fridge, so you may
> be right.I had actually thought that the mould spores might be in the flour
> itself.
>
> In the past I have had the occasional mouldy spot on the edge of the jar,
> but they did not touch the starter and it was fine (I just put the starter
> into a new clean sterilised jar). This time the starter itself is mouldy,
> I tried to revive the starters several times before tossing them, but seems
> that I was cultivating mould as well. And it makes the bread taste mouldy.
>
> With my new starter, I think I might try sterilising the flour and water
> before feeding (thanks again for the tip in a previous message, Samartha).
>
> What I wanted to do was to store a sample (dried? frozen?) of good starter
> that I could revive if all else failed.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jenny
> > --
> > remove -nospam from my email address, if there is one
> > SD page is the http://samartha.net/SD/
--
remove -nospam from my email address, if there is one
SD page is the
http://samartha.net/SD/