Hello! I am new to making sour dough and was given this starter - see picture. It has been in the fridge a couple of days. It had liquid around it which I have poured away. It doesn’t look anything like any starter I have seen on line. It is slippery and rubbery and I don’t think I could separate part of it without using a knife. Would value any thoughts on whether it’s viable or whether I should chuck it out! Thanks v much! Katherine
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I’ve never seen a sourdough starter like that either, but it does look a lot like a kombucha starter! Does it smell like vinegar? Can you ask the person who gifted it to you? Kombucha is easy enough to make, but it sure isn’t a loaf of bread.
If it is a kombucha mother, I’m not sure if there’s any way to use it for sourdough bread, you could put just a little bit into a small test batch of flour/water and see what happens after feeding it for a few days, it might help along the process of building a starter from scratch. If the person who gave it to you uses it for bread, maybe they’ll have some tips!
As someone who makes both sourdough and kombutcha that is 100% a kombucha mother. If you want to make kombutcha with it its super easy just add that mother to a big container of very sweet tea and leave it be for a couple weeks. As for sourdough, the mother wont be any use for bread baking.
That is one big kombucha mother. You can cut it down to a reasonable size and make your own kombucha - it's easy, but you'll need some good information so you don't end up with vinegar.