FAQ: Starter not rising (#51)

book/sourdough-starter/sourdough-starter.tex

@@ -121,7 +121,9 @@ grams of water. It doesn't have to be exactly 50 grams of both
 water or flour. You could also be using less and/or simply eyeball
 it. The values are just shown as a reference. Don't use chlorinated
 water to setup your starter. It should be bottled water ideally,
-or here in Germany we can just use our tap water. The hydration
+or here in Germany we can just use our tap water. Chlorine
+is added to water to kill microorganisms. You will not
+be able to grow a starter with chlorinated water. The hydration
 of your dough is 100 percent. This means you have equal parts
 of flour and water. Stir everything together so that all the flour
 is properly hydrated. By adding water many of your microbes'

book/troubleshooting/misc.tex

@@ -606,3 +606,42 @@ this type of starter.
 
 You can read more about the liquid starter
 in section \ref{section:liquid-starter}
+
+\section{My new starter doesn't rise at all}
+
+Make sure that you use unchlorinated water.
+In many areas of the world tap water has
+chlorine added to kill microorganisms. If that's
+the case in your region bottled spring water will
+help.
+
+Make sure to use whole flour (whole wheat, whole rye, etc.).
+These flours have more natural wild yeast and
+bacterial contamination. Making a starter
+from just white flour sometimes doesn't work.
+Try to use organic unbleached flour to make
+the starter. Industrial flour can sometimes
+be treated too much with fungicides.
+
+\section{I made a starter, it rose on day 3 and now not anymore}
+
+This is normal. As your starter is maturing different
+microorganisms are activated. Especially during
+the first days of the process bad microbes
+like mold can be activated. These cause your
+starter to rise a lot. With each subsequent
+starter-feeding, you select the microbes that are best
+at fermenting flour. For this reason, it is
+recommended to discard the leftover unused starter
+from the first days of the process. Later on, unneeded
+starter amounts should never be thrown away. You can make
+great discard bread out of it.
+
+So just keep going and don't give up. The first big
+rise is an indicator that you are doing everything
+right. Based on my experience it takes around 7
+days to grow a starter. As you feed your starter
+more and more it will become even better at fermenting
+flour. The first bread might not go exactly as you
+planned, but you will get there eventually. Each
+feeding makes your starter stronger and stronger.