I received my order last Thursday and promptly began the process of making this starter at 4:30 that afternoon. Rather than go with feeding every 24 hours, I decided to go with every 12. It was stored in a glass jar (covered with a coffee filter held on with a rubber band) in the cabinet above my refrigerator (at a pretty constant 73.5 degrees).

I happened to wake up at exactly 4:30 am on Friday morning and did the first feeding. There wasn't any action taking place that I could see and, after 12 hours, what I had was devoid of any bubbling and pretty bland tasting.

At 4:30 pm on Friday, I can't say there was much difference. By Saturday afternoon, it was smelling much better and there was definitely some sourness to the starter. However, I still didn't see any bubbling and couldn't smell any yeast at all.

Sunday morning at 9:30 am (still no bubbling, but it did have a layer of "hooch") I discarded all but 1/2 cup of starter, and fed it. However this time, I added equal amounts of both flour and water by weight in grams (a 100% hydration) as I thought the starter was a bit thin; liquidy. I put everything in a new 50oz jar I'd recently purchased.

I checked it at around 2:30 pm Sunday afternoon and, much to my surprise, my starter was very much "alive". It had clearly doubled in volume within 5 hours. I've kept up with regular feedings and the starter is reliably doubling within a few hours of feeding. It smells wonderful and has a pleasant bit of a "tang" to it.

I'm planning my first bake for Friday morning.

The attached pics are the "before" and "after" shots.

It is probably me, but I could not get this yeast to work. The best I could do was get the yeast to bubble a little bit after a week. I figured, it would be worth it to give it a try and I tried to use the yeast in some bread. The bread kneaded well, passed the window test and formed a nice ball. I placed the ball on parchment paper to rise and after 20 hours I had an incredibly sticky mess. It was just a wad on the parchment paper that could not be scraped off. I don't doubt it was my fault and I do believe the great reviews. I just could not get this yeast to work. It just never seemed to activate and I ended up with a sticky mess. I will give it another try next sometime this year but it stumped me this time.

I have used many other starters and made my own. This starter was very slow to start compared to every other starter I have used. I question whether my starter now contains organisms bred from the purchased starter or just naturally occurring organisms from the flour and my kitchen, but it makes delicious bread. In all fairness, I'm sure a couple starter kits get left on the shelf at Amazon for to long. The quality of the original product is probably not to blame.

This is a great sourdough starter, it takes a little time to get your starter rolling into full production, but it's well worth the wait. I've had to make some adjustments to the accompanying bread recipe in order to achieve the kind of loaves I'm going for. If you're looking into getting started in the world of sourdough then this is a good starting point.

Following the starter instructions carefully, but the yeast action in baking is VERY slow. When making bread, two days passed before getting a passable rise. After that, gave the loaves 5 hours to rise. Result was ok and sourness was moderate, but not the SF sour that I was expecting. A moderate and dull sourness rather than that SF tart sour that I've enjoyed in commercial breads for the last 60 years.

I'll keep trying. It will be an interesting type of loaf, but not a SF sourdough. Also, I can plan ahead for the slow proof. I think I'll add some commercial yeast after the initial proofing, as I knead and shape the loaves.

I'm doubt I'd buy it again. My homemade starter has more tartness and interest in flavor. Maybe ok as a change of taste.