I thought at first the culprit was Carl's starter. My Carl's starter - the whole wheat version only - has smelled like vinegar since I finally got it going a couple of weeks ago. I wondered about that. My wild whole wheat starter smells like apple cider. At least, it did for the two or three months its been alive. It's now started to smell like vinegar, too. And although it still leavens, and I haven't tried baking with it, it's not a nice smell anymore. It seems to be "turning," as the old fashioned term goes.
So I wondered if Carl's starter, which has proved very vigorous - actually, amazingly fast and bubbly - has also been more aggressive than I'd realized. All that old yeast floating around in my kitchen - what's to stop it leaping, warlike, into foreign jars and staging a coup?
I was pretty sure I didn't contaminate anything directly. I use different spoons for each starter and wash each container thoroughly when transferring batches. So it must be Carl's influence, I figured.
Then I remembered. The last few days have been rather hectic. I've been neglecting my wild whole wheat starters and only feeding them once a day. I thought they'd whine a little, but not really raise a fuss. I mean, I've heard of people neglecting to feed their starters for weeks on end and the starters surviving, against all odds. This seemed a minor infraction.
But what if the vinegar smell that all my whole wheat starters were emitting was essentially caused by the same thing - i.e., underfeeding?
Here's my thinking:
Fact #1: Carl's starter is very hearty. It eats up flour like the stuff grows on trees. My whole wheat Carl (honestly, no tactless pun intended, but I call it Raisin Carl because I used raisin water in one of my many initial efforts to revive Carl Griffith's starter) has always smelled like vinegar, which might - possibly - be because I've been starving it all this time. Maybe it needs feeding three, even four times a day. Or just more flour for the feeding. (Here is where I'm handicapped by the fact that I do not measure or deal in exact hydrations. I just add water and flour as it falls out of the container. If too much spills or falls out, I add more of the other. I do waste a lot of flour and filtered water this way, but at least I don't have to be organized. I'm not sure I'd survive that.)
Fact #2: Wild yeasts thrive on whole wheat flour because of all the nutrients in the bran and germ. When for two or three days in a row, I fed the starters only once per day, maybe they reacted as Carl's starter did - they starved.
Fact #3: If this is true, I feel horribly guilty. They count on me. I count on them. But there's also hope there.
Fact #4: If I'm wrong, and Carl's starter did take over my kitchen and my wild starters, then I could have a problem. My family likes the taste of the wild starters better than Carl's. If one had to go, it would be Carl's.
So what am I doing now? I've trashed my whole wheat version of Carl's starter, and am trying to revive the whole wheat wild starter. I'm also trying to revive some of my wild yeasts from dried starter I'd saved for just such emergencies. In fact, I jumped the gun a bit on that one. I mixed 'em up in a panic, forgetting that I actually have some of the wild stuff refrigerated. So I took that out and am refreshing that, too.
Basically, I've got a windowsillfull of starters going to vinegar - or becoming Carl's starter - and a heart full of hope.
Wish me luck.
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