Yet another Tartine newbie feeling lost..
So here is the long story. 8 days ago I began my starter following an online recipe that described the Tartine method. I combined 315g of 50/50 white and wheat flour (Trader Joe's AP, and KA) with 455g of warm water. It seemed sort of watery but I went with it. I put it in my basement where the temp was about 64%. I now know that it too cold, but bear with me. After 4 days the thing actually began to look like it had some life in it. I had some bubbles and hooch...also some weird looking greenish blue stuff. In any case I removed the moldy lookng stuff and got rid of all but 50g of the starter and and followed the 1:2:2 ratio I found that people were using here and I brought the starter up stairs where the temp is always around 71F. Then..the thing seemed lifeless. I fed it for two days with no signs of life less 4 bubbles (I counted them). I decided to skip feeding yesterday and this morning had some hooch. I thought...well maybe they are alive, but hungry. After reading way (too much) here..I decied to "super charge" my starter with some rye flour (AM Organic). Fed it this morning at 10:00 and have seen no activty. So after this lengthy narrative..my question(s) is...do I continue to feed this bowl of mush that only really smells "bready" or do I wait until the smell changes? or do I add pienapple juice? or do I scrap the whole thing and start over? Every starter recipe makes it seem so simple, yet so many variables persist. Looking for guidance out of the forest. Thanks.
FG