Rise, bubbles, smell: reading the jar
This is the lesson where you actually learn to read your starter instead of just feeding it and hoping.
Because that's most of what this is. Reading. Not measuring, not timing it to the minute. Looking at the jar and knowing what it's telling you.
What you're actually looking for
Three things. Rise, bubbles, smell. In that order, because rise is the easiest one to see and the most useful.
Rise. After you feed your starter, it should get visibly bigger. Not huge — this isn't a science-fair volcano — but noticeably domed up from where it started. If you're using a jar with a rubber band around it marking the starting line (you should be, I mention this in the "where to keep it" lesson), you want to see it climb an inch or two above that band. Then it'll come back down. That whole climb-and-fall is the thing you time yourself against, not the clock on the wall.
Bubbles. Look at the sides of the jar, not just the top. You want little bubbles all through it, not just a few on the surface. A starter that's just sitting there smooth and flat isn't doing much. A starter that looks like it's got texture, little holes and bubbles worked all through it, is alive and working.
Smell. This one takes longer to learn and I can't fully teach it to you in a lesson, you just have to smell your starter a lot over the next few weeks. A healthy, hungry starter smells kind of yeasty, a little tangy, maybe a bit like beer or plain yogurt. Not bad. If it ever smells like nail polish remover or paint thinner, that's not death, that's just a starter that's really hungry and gone a bit too long without food — feed it and it'll come back. If it smells actually rotten, like garbage, something's gone wrong and you start over. That's rare.
The timing question
People ask me "how long until it's ready to use" like there's one answer. There isn't, and this is where elevation matters more than people expect.
We're at about 4,600 feet here. Things move faster up here than they do in a recipe written by someone at sea level. I learned this the hard way with my first few loaves — I followed a rise time from someone else's blog and let the dough go the full time they said, and it overproofed every time. Same thing happens with a starter. If a recipe tells you "your starter will double in 4-6 hours," don't set a timer and walk away. Check it at hour three. Up here, especially in summer, it might already be there.
Watch the dough, not the clock. I say that a lot in this course because it's the single most useful habit you can build.
A problem you'll probably hit: the skin
Here's one I didn't figure out for way too long. My starter — and my dough later on, same issue — kept forming a thin dry skin across the top during its rise. I thought something was wrong with it. Turns out it was just our air. It's dry here, especially in winter, and an open jar sitting on the counter is basically inviting that surface to dry out and crust over while the inside's still doing its thing underneath.
The fix is stupidly simple. Loose lid, or a damp towel over the jar, or a plate resting on top — not sealed tight, just enough to keep the air off the surface. Took me way longer than it should have to try that. Once I did, no more skin, and the starter looked healthier because I could actually see what it was doing instead of guessing under a crust.
What a "hungry" starter looks like versus a "fed and happy" one
- Just fed: thick, kind of pasty, not much going on yet.
- A couple hours in: starting to loosen, maybe a bubble or two showing.
- Peak (this is your window): risen up, domed, bubbly all through, smells good and tangy, maybe just starting to think about falling.
- Past peak, hungry: fallen back down, maybe a little liquid pooling on top (that's called hooch, it's fine, stir it in or pour it off, your choice), smell gets sharper.
You want to bake with it — or feed it again — somewhere around peak. Not required to be exact. Sourdough's forgiving, not fussy. If you miss peak by an hour, nothing bad happens. The starter just gets hungrier and a little more sour-smelling, and you feed it and move on.
What to actually do this week
Every time you feed, before you walk away, look at it. Note the time. Come back in a couple hours and look again. Write down what you saw — rise, bubbles, smell, in a word or two, in your notebook. You're building a record of what normal looks like for your starter, in your kitchen, at our elevation, so that when something's off, you'll actually notice.
Before next time, feed your starter and set a timer for three hours, then go look at it without touching anything. Just look. That's the whole assignment.
- J