The Mother Dough Blues

Question

I wanted to expand my answer to this question by adding info about the color blue.

Both mother and sour doughs are very stable, but can be 'invaded' by a bacteria that'll give it a bluish taint. I'd throw that dough in the bin (actually, I did once), but I can't find any information confirming that.

So, there's the question: how do you recognize the mother is spoiled?

Asked by BaffledCook

Answer

The sour dough (including the 'mother') should be considered spoiled when:

• It smells very bad (like voimit or feces). The natural sour dough smell may be not very pleasant to some, but spoiled dough smells really afwul
• It grows hair. That means mold. And even if it is visible only on the surface, whole dough is spoiled.
• It gets strange colour. Generally the dough should be white/gray/brownish, maybe with some darker spots when whole grain flour is used. When it becomes black, red or blue – it is bad.
• It doesn't work. Good sour dough will raise when fed and put it warm place. When it is spoiled it usually won't work any more. Good bacteria and yeast are usually mostly dead when bad bacteria or mold took over the dough.

Answered by Jacek Konieczny

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