Hi Chris,

You wrote:

Is it possible to make a starter with just flour (KA) and water?

If you look back through my posts from a few months ago you'll see some
answers to my questions which may help you. I followed the instructions
in the FAQ (use rye flour for the 1st 3-4 days, refresh daily, then
switch to plain flour) and got lucky to produce a starter which has
worked quite well. I've since obtained a starter from someone on this
list (thanks Ulrike) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that mine is
not too different in its level of activity. I recently got some from
Carl's friends and it is quite impressive in its activity level. While I
am very fond of my starter, I must confess that it's been in the fridge
ever since then :-)

I've been trying to do so for about 4 days now.

It took well over a week for me. At that point the starter would raise
bread but the resulting loaf had a funny taste and smell. I took
Kenneth's advice and started 12 hourly refreshments and after about 4-5
days the funny smell vanished. My first few loaves were extremely sour
but that too has settled down after a while to produce nicely flavoured
loaves.

Hope this helps,

james
(reverse each part of my email address to contact me directly)