This is how I made my starter. Are there other ways? Sure. Are there more complicated ways? Of course. I found this to be a pretty simple, straight forward and a no fuss no muss way of making starter. A friend of mine and I both started one at the same time and both of us were successful, however, PATIENCE IS NEEDED. Perfection isn't automatic.
Starter
Ingredients:
To begin your starter:
1/2 cup (50g) unbleached flour (bleached kills the yeast)
1/4 cup (50g) water (****if you have city water, let water sit out for a couple of hours to get rid of the chlorine in the water before adding at every step and at every feeding - chlorine kills yeast)
To feed your starter:
1/2 cup (50g) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/4 cup (50g) water clean water (see above)
Instructions:
Day 1:
Combine the flour with the water in a non-reactive container. Glass, crockery, stainless steel, or food-grade plastic all work fine for this.
Make sure the container is large enough to hold your starter as it grows; I recommend at least 1-quart capacity, like a large canning jar.
Stir everything together thoroughly; make sure there's no dry flour anywhere.
Cover the container loosely (paper towel with a rubber-band works well) and let the mixture sit at warm room temperature (about 70°) for 24 hours.
Day 2:
You may see no activity at all in the first 24 hours, or you may see a bit of growth or bubbling.
Either way, throw out half the starter (not down the drain, it will make cement in your pipes), and add to the remainder a 1/2 cup (50 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour, and 1/4 cup (50 grams) water.
Mix well, cover, and let the mixture rest at room temperature for 24 hours.
Day 3:
By the third day, you'll likely see some activity — bubbling; a fresh, fruity aroma, and some evidence of expansion.
It's now time to begin two feedings daily, as evenly spaced as your schedule allows.
For each feeding, stir down the starter, discard half and add a scant 1/2 cup (50 grams) flour, and 1/4 cup (50 grams) water to the starter.
Mix the starter, flour, and water, cover, and let the mixture rest at room temperature for approximately 12 hours before repeating.
Day 4: Discard half the starter. Repeat Day 3.
Day 5: Discard half the starter. Repeat step Day 3.
By the end of day 5:
The starter should have at least doubled in volume. You'll see lots of bubbles; there may be some little "rivulets" on the surface, full of finer bubbles.
Also, the starter should have a tangy aroma — pleasingly acidic, but not overpowering.
If your starter hasn't risen much and isn't showing lots of bubbles, repeat discarding and feeding every 12 hours on day 6, and day 7, if necessary — as long as it takes to create a vigorous (risen, bubbly) starter.
Once the starter is ready:
Give it one last feeding.
Discard half, feed as usual.
Let the starter rest at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours; it should be active, with bubbles breaking the surface. Remove however much starter you need for your recipe.
Transfer the remaining starter to its permanent home: a crock, jar, or whatever you'd like to store it in long-term. Store this starter in the refrigerator. I recommend using it once a week, if possible. The more frequently you feed it, the less time and effort it takes to get your starter ripe and ready for baking. I feed mine once a week, and bake once a week. I take it out the night before to warm the starter up, and feed it, then refrigerate it until early morning and take it out to double. It takes mine about 4 hours to double. New ones may take longer.
Maintaining the Starter:
The starter only needs two things to survive, unchlorinated water and unbleached flour. Bleached flour can kill the yeast, because that is what bleach does. The night before you are going to make something, or even the early morning of the same day, feed the starter.
Feeding the starter:
(Starter: Flour: Water)
Keep about 1/2 cup or 50 g or less of the starter in your jar for storage. I keep about 1/4 cup or less.
Then add about 1/2 cup or 50g of unbleached flour, and then add 1/4 cup or 50g of room temperature water or enough that when stirred it makes a consistency of thick pancake batter. (Depends on the amount of starter the recipe calls for.)
If you are making more than one thing, you can double the amount of flour and water.
Place a rubber band at where the starting point is, and when it more than doubles in size, it is ready to make something with.
Storing the starter:
Use a clean glass jar, a mason jar works great, lightly put on a lid, so air can still get through, and place in the refrigerator for up to a week.
If more than a week, I would discard half and feed it. You can keep a discard jar, some do.
Discard:
Discard is if you want to feed the starter and not make something. (Like if you are not going to use it for a couple of weeks.)
Take about 1/2 of the starter out of the jar, place it in a discard jar, and then feed the starter. (Or amount you want for a discard recipe.)
You can use the discard for things like pancakes, waffles, biscuits, and many other things. You can store discard in the refrigerator for later, just loosely cover and make sure you know it is not starter. Just check the internet for discard recipes and you will find many.
Killing Starter:
You really can't kill starter, unless you let it get moldy. People have left it for a year in the refrigerator without feeding it, and it came back after a couple of feedings. You can leave it on the counter and bake with it every day, or in the frig and feed it once a week. Just be nice to it!