Sour Dough Starter

A friend of mine recently shared some of her sour dough starter with me.  I have wanted to try starters before but most of what I came across, years ago, was to buy the yeast to make your starter.  

Her starter consisted of 1/4 flour 

(She may have used Coconut flour, I forgot to ask, but I used King Arthur Whole Wheat)

1/4 Spring Water or boiled tap water 

(don't want the chlorine killing things off)

Add this every day for 7 days

Some say refrigerate after a certain period of time.  I say why? Refridgeration has not always been available to the average household.

So I have left mine out.  A lot of the research I've done suggest if you refrigerate to let it get started really well and have "proved" it successful.

This is a 3 week old starter: 

Yes, it's small.  I haven't been "feeding" it so it has gone dormant.
This is fine (it is suggested to feed it a least once a week).
I still have a few questions about how long it needs to be active before using.

On a side note:

A sour dough starter is not alcoholic unless it has sugar to feed on 

and is in an anaerobic (without oxygen) state.

I used a coffee filter for a "lid" to keep stuff from falling in, but allow it to "breath" 

and get the natural occuring airborne yeast.

I'm pretty excited about it.  So far I've only made pizza crust with it.  I need to feed consistantly until it's active again and I'm going to try a regular loaf of sour dough bread.  

Then ~ onto Jewish Rye!!