Sourdough Starter Help!

[MiracleBaby2022]

So... I've tried to get a sourdough starter going 6 times now, with no luck. Any sourdough experts out there who can help please?

I'm using the recipe from theclevercarrot.com which is basically 60g wholewheat flour and 60g water. Make it on day 1, leave it on day 2, then feed day 3-7.

The first attempts seemed to go marvellously, lots of bubbles, until day 3 when I fed it and it seemed to die. No bubbles and just a stinky smell. I pour off the hooch daily (if there is any) from day 3. The first 5 attempts was with the lid closed, and I never get passed day 3 or 4, so my mum suggested the lid needs to be ajar, so I started another one, but it's not bubbling at all and today when it technically time to feed it, it's got mould on the surface! 🤪 What am I doing wrong?

Depends on what flour you’re using.
Starter likes good quality flour. Use whatever you want for making bread but keep the good quality flour for starter (Doves Farm,Shipton Mill,etc).If you have your starter in glass jar leave the lid on loosely as build up of gases from fermentation might explode the jar.

Wholewheat Tesco flour killed my starter and according to the review on their website somebody else’s as well. This comment was later removed.

Ask on local fb for starter,lots of people happy to share or look up ebay (that’s what I did).

Also for the water- don’t use water straight from the tap. Let it sit for a few hours to get rid of chlorine.

Thanks @FrenchBoule !

I can't actually remember which wholewheat flour in put in my jar last time, so I've just started another one with organic dark whole meal rye flor from buywholefoods.com - let's see how that goes!

I use water that has been filtered with one of those in-jar charcoal filters because the water here is very chlorinated, but I need to use a bit of warm water from the kettle to warm it up.

Right, so I've tried again with the rye flour. Everything went well until day 4. Mouldy. I'm going to try again with sterilised equipment!My god is it meant to be this hard to make a sourdough starter!? 🙈