Decide which route fits the jar
| What you know | Next step |
|---|---|
| Established jar, familiar appearance, clear history | Try a measured refresh and watch for renewed activity. |
| Flat surface liquid on a familiar, long-unfed jar | Check for separate signs of contamination. If the jar otherwise passes inspection, follow your usual refresh method. |
| Suspicious fuzz, streaks, growth or an unusual change you cannot identify | Discard the whole starter. Clean the jar and utensils thoroughly before restarting. |
| Young jar that never rose dependably | Return to the instructions for creating a new starter, provided there are no signs of contamination. |
| Unlabelled jar with an unknown history | If you cannot assess what it contains or how it was kept, start again with a known culture or a fresh flour-and-water method. |
A long gap and an alcoholic smell can occur in a neglected mature jar. The overall history and appearance matter, and neither smell nor a photograph can establish that a starter is safe. Keep raw starter out of taste tests. [1] [3]
Use a refresh you can compare
- Wash your hands and use a clean jar and utensil. If the starter passes your inspection, move a measured portion to the new jar.
- Feed by weight using the familiar flour and a straightforward established-starter method. King Arthur’s equal-weight refresh uses 50 g each of retained starter, flour and water. Mark the height, record the time and cover loosely. [4]
- Leave it at room temperature and check for bubbles and expansion. If the top is lower than a clear high-water mark, log that it may have peaked between checks.
- Continue with the room-temperature refresh cadence in the method you are following. King Arthur’s pre-bake revival instructions use roughly 12-hour refreshments until the culture reliably rises again. Compare similar feeds and judge the response alongside your own recipe’s cues. [4]
Keeping the jar at a steady temperature and using the same ratio across the first comparisons helps you tell whether the culture is recovering. Record a change if you need to make one.
What improvement can look like
This is an illustrative log for an established jar, with example readings.
| Check | What you see | What you decide |
|---|---|---|
| First refresh | Bubbles appear and the level moves from 20 mm to 23 mm. | Record the movement. Allow more time before planning a mix. |
| Later comparable refresh | The level moves from 20 mm to 34 mm and bubbles are distributed through the jar. | Look for the response to repeat before relying on it. |
| Next comparable refresh | The jar follows its familiar rise again and meets the bread recipe’s readiness cues. | Build the quantity for the bake and leave enough to keep the culture going. |
If progress stalls, ask whether the jar was cooler than usual or the rise happened while you were away. If a few consistent feeds produce very little response, reconsider the starter’s condition and whether replacing it is a better use of the time before your bake. If suspicious growth appears at any point, stop and discard the culture. [5] [1]
Crispy Crust’s planned recovery routine would let you log a return from the fridge separately from normal feeds. Having the last successful rise beside the new readings can help you decide when to schedule the bake.
What if you are not sure whether the first refresh worked?
Make the next check easier to compare. Clean the wall above the starting line, note when you fed it and photograph the level before you move the jar. A higher mark later can show that the feed rose while you were away. If the starter stays close to the baseline over several comparable feeds, a new culture from a known source may be more practical than postponing the bake again.