I've wanted to make a sourdough starter for ages, having read about it in the Little House books as a child. Recently I've been trying, following advice on various websites, and just can't get one to come to life. I've been trying with various combinations of flour and water, but nothing has worked in creating the living starter.

Then yesterday a friend has given me one of these netmums-German friendship bread-Herman cake starter things that's been doing the rounds. It is a live starter, and it's doing well in my airing cupboard. I'm really pleased, and I am going to make the cake that it's meant for. However, it's a sweet starter, with sugar and milk in it, and I'm wondering if there's a way that I can also use some of it to make a sourdough starter?

I was wondering whether if I take a portion of the sweet starter, and feed it with flour and water, would it eventually become a sour starter, if the water & flour eventually overtake the sugar & milk in terms of proportions? I want to try the cake, but I really really want to make proper sourdough bread too. The advice on the internet is so confusing and conflicting, there are millions of websites out there and they all say something different.

I'm on my iPhone ATM but I know there was a thread on here about the Herman cake - someone might have said something in there.

Edit: the thread is on page 10 but there's only about 4 answers - hang in there some here will know for sure.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

I'm not too worried about the sweet starter - it seems extraordinarily healthy, and is pulsating away like some blobby kind of Doctor Who alien. What I'm really wondering is whether I can use this to make a separate sour starter. I've tried it anyway - used a cup of the sweet starter and fed it with flour and water, and have it in the airing cupboard. It doesn't look nearly as alive as the sweet one!

Hubble, bubble.... I'd loved to have a go - I might one day, perhaps next week when hubby's back in work - my routine is haywire when he's off, love him.

Seriously, perhaps it's the extra sugar/sweetness that making your other/original 'hyperactive' as it were?

I've just made my own sourdough starter and it's taken two weeks but it's worked out really well for me. I don't know about using a sweet one to make sourdough but here's how I did mine.

I started off by mixing 100g of bread flour (50g wholemeal / 50g white - both organic) and 100ml warm water cooled from the kettle and covered with cling film.

I left it for a couple of days to let it ferment and then started feeding it with 100g flour and 100ml water, discarding the starter by half each day. Day 4 & 5 it smelt awful - like baby sick, but I kept going with it and it took til about day 10 for it to get back to the yeasty, bready smell. It's now about 3 weeks old and the bread it gives us is amazing! PM me if you have any questions?

Thanks! Maybe I should try it again. I did it exactly like that before, but gave up at about the baby sick stage every time.

Don't give up at that stage, the smell is the bad bacteria dying. But if it remains smelling like that for a week, then dump it coz it's been contaminated by bad bacteria...