Hooch: the Liquid on Top of Your Sourdough Starter
Opened the jar and found a layer of gray (or brown, or almost black) liquid? That is hooch. It looks alarming and smells like a distillery, but it is one of the most harmless things a starter can do.
What hooch is
Hooch is alcohol plus water, produced when the wild yeast in your starter runs out of food and shifts metabolism. It can smell sharply boozy or like acetone. It is not mold, not rot, and not a sign of death, it is a hunger signal.
What to do right now
- Pour it off (for a milder-tasting starter) or stir it in (for extra tang). Both are fine.
- Discard down to a couple of spoonfuls.
- Feed generously, 1:2:2 or bigger, and park the jar somewhere warm.
One or two cycles later the starter is back to bubbly and sweet-smelling.
When hooch keeps coming back
Frequent hooch means the feeding schedule is falling behind the starter's appetite. Three levers fix it:
- Feed a bigger meal (move toward 1:5:5) so the food lasts longer.
- Feed sooner, before the collapse instead of after it.
- Cool it down: a warm kitchen burns through food fast; the fridge stretches the cycle to a week.
Snap it and be sure
Not certain it's hooch? Photograph the jar and Sourdoughy's AI tells you whether you're looking at harmless hunger or a real problem, and what to feed next.
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