"Bob" wrote:
"Mike Pearce" wrote:

snip

My gut feel is that most people who run into problems with starting
starters, as someone else eluded to, is impatience.

snip

Here's why I am impatient:

Maybe my gut feel is right. g

Samartha states that the starter should
fermenting in 12 hours and if it hasn't, email him. Unless he just
likes to receive email, he appears to be doing that because he
suspects something is very wrong.

Samartha knows a hell of a lot more about sourdough than I. Even with your
assumption that he might be suspecting something is "very wrong", my guess
is that if it sounded like you were not doing something wrong in the process
his response would be to give it more time. (I hope Samartha will correct me
if my guess is wrong)

Also, nowhere that I can find on his
site or some others like his site is there any mention that the
culture should go for 5 full days without any pronounced activity. In
fact several sites state clearly that if the culture hasn't doubled in
size in 3-5 days, toss it.

The last time I made a starter was with Gold Medal AP flour. The feeding
schedule I used wasn't as agressive as Samartha's and it was a good five
days before it was barely noticibly getting going and a couple of days after
that before I felt comfortable that it was successful. I don't buy the idea
of a five day time limit. If I remember correctly this one was the slowest
or my starters to come around.

I guess I would become impatient and give up after maybe 10 days or so, but
probably not before that. It's never come to that though.

The point I was trying to make is that instructions like Samartha's work,
and in my case every time. If one follows them and is unsuccessful it is
probably a freak occurrence or the result of impatience. There is no reason
to look elsewhere, just try again.

I just ordered some sourdough starter from KA

On the other hand, I believe Dick Adams (another who knows a lot more than
I) has suggested to some to get proven starters. Maybe this is a good idea.
Hopefully you won't run into similar issues reviving it and keeping it
alive.

-Mike