Hi Jenny,
I am using a pretty stable starter I made myself some 10-11
months ago. I made it with the "rye flour/water chuck half/feed/wean
on white flour" method. I currently feed it on quaker oats, as I
inherited a large amount of them. Which is quite off topic here ...
I remember when I started I got that very same horrible
baby-vomit smell, when using white flour and water. I even managed a
burnt-gunpowder smell which was an efficient emetic...I
chucked/retried until I hit the rye flour method which worked for me.
UNTIL about two weeks ago. There was a thread here about
starters and catching bacteria from the air and other crap. So I
decided to experiment.
I took a 100 g instant coffee jar, with a plastic lid. Well
washed, Added about three soup spoons of white wheat flour, and beat
in mineral water until I got a very thin batter. This was done in the
garden shed, so no chance of contamination by my "pet" starters. And
just left it,with the lid loosely on, no mixing, no feeding, nothing,
except every day I examined it, and smelt it.
day one ... no activity ....smells of batter
day two ... bubbles, few. Not smelling good at all
day three ... bubbles ... smells of baby vomit
day four .... fermentation stopped ...separated into a layer
of flour and one of liquid.... smells of baby vomit
day five .... quite dead ? baby vomit ... I would have chucked
it.
day six ... suddenly "exploded". Climbed right up jar,
overflowed, had a different smell.
day seven ... subsided ... but has a fruity smell.

Took a spoonful of that, mixed it with a cup of flour and half
a cup of water. Next day, when it was at its zenith, made some really
good tasting bread.
Moral .... it seems that the sourdough organisms have a
tendency to dominate flour/water mixtures. There is however, a lot of
activity by non-sourdough organisms at the beginning. I am sure that
by day seven they were quite dead, but the toxins they produced
probably were still present. So when you get a nice smelling mixture,
DO dilute it in a lot of flour/water, so you get a pure culture, with
few toxins. Of course, every subsequent use will make it more pure.
Advice ... if it smells of baby puke .... just let it be. Do
not feed. Do not prod with finger !!! If it goes green/red/mouldy
chuck it. If it eventually smells better, use it. Don't feed it too
much. You will favor non-sourdough organisms. Sourdough bugs actually
like that acid environment !!!

Ambient temperature here .... 29c
Hope this helps

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 09:48:57 -0500, Jennifer Johnston
wrote:

I'm hoping that some of you experience sourdough-ers will be able to help
me:

For the first time this week-end, I tried creating a starter the "real
way", using the method outlined in the FAQ. I used organic unbleached
flour and warm water to the consistency of thick mud and let it sit in the
oven with the light turned on. After 24 hours, the starter had doubled in
volume, but smelled kind of "off" -- not yeasty or alchol-y but kind of
like garbage. I refrigerated the starter because it looked good to me
(even if it smelled bad.)

To see if the starter was healthy, last night I took a TB of it and added
warm water and flour (to the consistency of mud) and let it sit again in
the oven. This morning, it was bubbly (after about 12 hours) but smelled
even worse --like garbage or maybe vomit (sorry, but that's the best way
that I can think of to describe the smell.) Now, it's at room temperature
(73F) and I'm going to see what it's like tonight, after 24 hours.

This horrible smell can't be a good thing -- I would never want to bake
bread with something that smelled that bad. But why would it smell so bad
and yet look like a healthy starter? Should I just assume that something
wen't wrong and try again? I saw one recipe in the FAQ that said a stinky
smell could be because of a too warm temperature -- should I just leave
the starter at room temperature? The house is 73F during the day and 68F
at night (I was worried that it would be too cold at night, hence the
oven.)

I was surprised when the starter had doubled after 24 hours -- the FAQ
made it seem like it would take a week. Was I just lucky or is this
related to the stinky smell?

Thanks,
Jen