This is one of the most common problems people have when they make their first sourdough starter at home. Sourdough starters are very fragile in their first few weeks, and if something goes wrong it can easily stop them from rising. So let’s see what are the things that could have gone wrong.
The most common reasons why a sourdough starter is not rising are: chlorinated water, using the wrong type of flour, bad storage temperature, incorrect feeding ration, and bad bacteria.
As you can see there are quite a few things that might have gone wrong, but the good part is that most of them are very easily solved. So let’s get into a little more details about each problem, and see how it can be solved.
1. Chlorinated Water
A sourdough starter has two main ingredients, flour, and water. If one of the ingredients is bad the whole starter will be compromised.
In the case of water, the biggest problem that you can have is chlorine. In most cases, the water coming from the sink is perfectly safe to use for a starter, but in some cases, it can have too much chlorine. Chlorine is used to get rid of all the potential germs in the water, but too much chlorine can also get rid of the good bacteria in the starter.
There are two ways to check if your water has too much chlorine. You can either look online and see if you can find reports about the water in your area. Most towns, and cities have information about their water and it’s published online. If you can’t find any information online you can always buy a water testing kit and check the chlorine levels yourself.
If water with too much chlorine is your problem you should use bottled water instead. All bottled water has safe chlorine levels so it shouldn’t affect the bacteria living in the starter. Or you could boil the water and let it sit overnight, before using it, this will get rid of most of the chlorine.
As for how much damage chlorine water can do to a starter, it really depends on the amount of chlorine in the water. The simplest way to see if your starter can be saved is to see if it has any bubbles.
If your current starter has some bubbles on the surface it means that not all the bacteria are gone so you can start using bottled water and in a few days, your starter should start rising. But if you don’t see any bubbles on top of the starter, it most likely means that all the bacteria are gone and you have to start a new one.
Through the article, you will see me mentioning bacteria that live in the sourdough, if you don’t know about them, you should know that this is completely normal, they are good bacteria that don’t even make it into the bread itself, and they are also called probiotics. If you want to know more about them, you can check out my article: Does Sourdough Contain Probiotics? (+ What They Do)
2. You Are Not Using the Right Type of Flour
Unlike water, all flour can sustain a starter, but not all flour is the same, and some are better than others.
When you make your starter you should avoid bleached flour. During the bleaching process, a lot of the good bacteria that you need are removed from the flour, so your starter won’t have enough to rise. After two or three weeks you can use white flour to feed your starter, but until then you should stay away from it.
All flour will also be different depending on where the grain is from, the average temperature of the year, and air quality, amongst other factors. And sometimes a batch of flour can simply be unsuited for a starter, it’s rare but it happens.
If you used white flour simply switch to another type of flour, and give your starter some time, and it should start rising in about a week.
If you got unlucky and got some flour, you can easily tell due to the lack of bubbles on top of the starter. At this point, you are better off starting a new starter using a different flour.
One time when I was making a new starter, I tried using a new type of unbleached flour, and it simply refused to rise, even if everything else was the same. So sometimes it can simply be that you got bad flour, it’s unpleasant, but it can happen to anyone.
3. Wrong Storage Temperature
Temperature is extremely important for the growth of the starter, but very rarely will the temperature stop a starter from rising. In most cases storing your starter at the wrong temperature will leave you with the impression that the starter doesn’t rise, but it actually does. Let me explain why that is.
The starter is very sensitive to temperature. The ideal temperature is between 70°F(22°C) and 75°F(24°C). If you go lower than this, the fermentation process that is taking place in the starter will slow down, and so will the rising process, which can leave the impression that the starter is not rising.
If the temperature is higher than the recommended one, the starter will rise very quickly, but it will also fall very quickly. At a temperature of 86°F(30°C), this can happen in as little as 3 or 4 hours, so if you are not paying attention to the starter you might miss it completely and believe that it never happened.
Storing the starter at any other temperature that it’s not in its ideal range won’t harm it (unless we are talking about extreme temperatures like 140°F(60°C) or freezing temperatures) but it will definitely change the way it needs to be fed.
A starter that is stored at a lower temperature, like in the fridge, for example, doesn’t need to be fed daily, once every two or three days should be enough.
A starter that is stored at a higher temperature, like 86°F (30°C) which is very common during the summer needs to be fed 2 times per day, otherwise, the bacteria in it will go hungry, and won’t be able to raise the starter.
4. Wrong Feeding Ratio
Most starter recipes require a 1:1:1 feeding ration, this will get you what is called a wet starter, or a 100% hydration ration. But there are other types of ratios, like 1:3:1, which will get you a solid starter.
1:1:1 means: 1 part starter – 1 part flour – 1 part water
1:3:1 means: 1 part starter – 3 parts flour – 1 part water
There are many more feeding ratios, but one thing that all good feeding ratios have in common is the fact that they require more flour than starter. If you keep for example 50 grams of starter and only add 25 grams of flour, your starter will be hungry, and it won’t be able to grow.
Another problem that is related closely to the feeding ratio is incorrect measurements.
Not everybody is used to measuring in grams, so it’s easy to make mistakes when measuring ingredients.
A big mistake that people make is that they use cups to measure the water and the flour, instead of using grams. Cups are used to measure volume, grams are used to measure weight. One cup of flour weighs 120 grams, while a cup of water weighs 236 grams.
Using too much flour or too much flour or water can stop the starter from rising.
5. Too Much Water or Flour
Technically speaking a starter can be as watery or as solid as you want to make it. But the closer you are to a balanced ratio the more noticeable the rise will be.
So to figure out if this is your problem you should look at your starter over the day and see if you notice any kind of bubbles or air pockets in it, or on top of it.
If you notice a lot of them, then your starter is completely healthy and you just need to use a more balanced ratio. If you notice just a few or none at all, then your problem is not the amount of flour or water that you are using, and it’s something else on this list.
6. Bad Bacteria
The sourdough starter is filled with acetic acid that is produced by the bacteria that live in it. This acid is responsible for the sourness of the sourdough, but it also does one more thing, it acts as a protection against bad bacteria that can’t survive in the acidic environment.
But even this natural protection has its limits. If somehow a lot of bad bacteria end up in your starter, they could end up compromising it, and as a result, the starter will stop growing.
At this point, unfortunately, there is nothing that you can do, except for starting a new starter. But this happens very rarely, the acidity of the starter is very strong, so before throwing out your starter make sure that there is no other problem with it.
Again the best way to see if your starter is healthy or not is to look for bubbles. But if you believe that this is your problem you could also look for a few more things like a moldy smell, or an orange/pink tint. Those are signs of mold and if you notice them you should throw your starter.
You can find more information about this in my article: Is Homemade Sourdough Bread Safe? (The Final Verdict)
7. Give It More Time
The last thing that you should know is that it’s perfectly normal for a starter to rise for the first 2 or 3 days and then to stop rising for a few days, even a week.
The starter is basically a home for thousands of small bacteria, which need some time to adjust to the environment, and during this time they won’t make the starter grow.
This can last up to one, or even two weeks. If you are sure that there is nothing else wrong with your starter you should give it some time to adjust to its environment, and during this time you should feed it regularly.
I’ve personally never heard of a starter that needed more than two weeks before it started growing again. But one thing to keep in mind is that as long as your starter is bubbly, the bacteria in it are well and active, and everything it’s fine with it. If you don’t see any bubbles, then you know that your starter has gone bad and you need to make a new one.
Final Thoughts
Sourdough starters are surprisingly fragile but somewhat hardy at the same time. The only thing that you need to do in order for them to be healthy is to feed them properly and to keep them at a reasonable temperature.
So most of the things that can go wrong are related to what they are being fed and the temperature that they are kept at.
If your starter is bubbly but it’s not rising, and you are not exactly sure what’s the problem, my suggestion is to separate your starter into multiple jars and try different things for each one. For one you can add more flour, For one, you can use bottled water. You can keep one of the jars in the kitchen and one in the bedroom, and so on. Try different things until you find the problem.