Starter question
Hello everyone. I'm new to this site and also very new to baking.
I'm trying to make a sourdough starter. This is my third attempt. I started it on the 17th of November using the pineapple juice method posted on this site. I used organic whole wheat flour at first, after the 3 days I switched to organic unbleached white flour and fed it once a day (keep 1/4 cup starter, discarding the rest, add 1/4th cup flour, a little less than 1/4th cup water). I noticed it grew a bit after 5 days, however after a while it seemed to have died down. I did notice white fluffy fungus on the side of the container after feeding it once and I immediately discarded all but 1/4 cup of starter and put it in a clean container and fed it again. Since then, activity seemed to have died down. After about 4 days in the new container, the starter got a very bad smell; it smelled of baby vomit. Since then I started feeding it twice a day, but now, about 7 days later it still smells (it smells of strong yoghurt and almost vinegary, is that good or not?) and seems to be hungry a lot (has a layer of water on top). It sometimes seems like it's a bit cloudy under the layer of water; I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Could it be the temperature? I placed it in a towel, because at night the temperature in my house drops to about 16 C. During the day it's around 19,5-20,5 C. I placed the container in the kitchen, near the stove and about 50 cm away from a radiator; I didn't want it to become very hot. I don't have a place where there's a constant warmish temperature.
I apologize for the long text, I tried to be as detailed as possible. Does anyone have tips for me? Should I feed it more? Is it heading in the right direction or do I have to start over?
Thanks in advance!