Well, I almost thought I knew what they were talking about when they said "liquid levain" or whichever.  Some books differentiate when they specify a levain type.  But now I'm confused again.  Maybe there are standard definitions?

So thanks to this awesome forum, I have finally created the Columbia recipe in Glezer's book correctly. Pics are below. Now I understand how this is supposed to be made from cultured yeasts from rye flour, then building this up to make a strong culture. I did just this. One thing I do not get is that every time I make this bread recipe, I am only using 30g of it the day before and letting it ferment. This does not seem to be a true sour sourdough recipe?

I’m finally getting around to posting Maggie Glezer’s firm sourdough starter recipe.  For those of you having problems with your starters you might wish to give this a try.  Most people here are using batter-style starters so it might be interesting to see if there is any discussion on firm starters.  Plus I need help in learning to convert properly for use in recipes which don’t use a firm starter and there are always questions that come up.