I made a starter over 5 days around 6 weeks ago with whole wheat flour and water and later added bread flour and water.  I made several breads with it.   It came out pretty well but not hugely sour.   I left around 3/4 cups in the refrigerator for a few weeks, and took it out yesterday to get it ready for a new bread.   A few hours after the first feeding it developed an acrid alcohol smell, and not in a good way.   I fed it again last night, to see if it would recover its good smell.   This morning the smell is still there but less intense.   Has it spoiled?   What happened to it?   I had it in a closed plastic container in the refrigerator.    I don't want to send good flour after bad.

Hi again! 

It's me, the newbie that experienced existential angst over Carl's starter a couple of months ago :)

The starter, fed with AP, was doing pretty well and made a great loaf of JMonkey's 100% WW bread.  Then I realized that I had cut out most refined (read:white) products out of my life and had been trying to eat only whole grains, so I decided to convert my starter into WW. (30g starter:30g WW:30g water)

I haven't made bread with it since the conversion (it's been about a month and I'm trying to get him stronger as he takes about 12 hours to double) but I'm now browsing the forums and people are saying how much more difficult it is to maintain, how it's much more sour, and how WW may contaminate a starter, etc.  What are your thoughts on this?  I know I will be making breads with a percentage of bread flour or AP flour anyway such as brioche, so does it make more sense to maintain a white starter?  Is it possible to convert a WW starter to white?

Let the debates begin!

hi there, i have a starter that i "started" with AP flour and worked great - i kept feeding it and it lasted for 2 months or so. then i decided to make it a whole wheat starter so i started using WW flour instead of AP for the feedings.  even though i covered it while on the counter w/ saran wrap a fruit fly or two still managed to get in there (which didn't happen w/ the AP starter).

so i put it in the fridge, and it's been in there sleeping for almost a month.  should i toss it or do you think i can revive it?

 thanks for any help you can offer.

I recently converted part of my white flour starter to whole wheat, and it seemed to be doing just fine. I'm trying to increase it to make JMonkey's whole wheat bread, which requires a lot of starter. I had 200 g. of starter, so I fed it 200 g. of water and 400 g of wheat flour hoping to double the bulk. It made a nice firm dough ball, so I figured the proportions were right. After 12 hours it isn't doing much of anything at all. My questions are: 1) do I add a bit more water to see if that perks it up?