My sourdough starter took a full 3 weeks to finally double in size

I kept feeding it every day with a mix of rye and all-purpose flour, but for the first 2 weeks it barely showed any bubbles. Then around day 16 I noticed it started rising maybe 20% after 12 hours. By day 21 it was doubling in just 6 hours. The thing that made the difference was switching to filtered water instead of tap in my Dallas apartment. Anybody else dealt with city water killing their starter activity?

2 comments

2 Comments

davis.ivan1mo ago

Filtered water instead of tap" seems like a stretch. Tap water in most cities has chlorine that evaporates if you let it sit out overnight, and that's usually fine for starters. More likely your starter just hit its natural stride around day 16, which is pretty standard for a rye blend anyway.

jade2261mo ago

Oh I actually saw someone on a baking blog say their tap water was killing their starter until they switched to bottled, so it does happen sometimes even if it's rare. But yeah, day 16 is totally normal timing for a starter to finally take off.