Thanks. I take it then that your answer is that I might as well forget about my original "Starter A" and just run with the more active "Starter B," which may simply have overcome some inhibiting contamination. I think I'll take Starter A out of cold storage (where it has been for a week) just to see how it behaves, but as Starter B is doing so well, I won't keep feeding two strains. (About the "layers" in my original post, what I meant is that I have just been pouring my discards into a big container without stirring, so the bottom is the oldest. Because the discard stays in the fridge, it's pretty viscous and there is certainly no physical mixing of layers. Perhaps all the yeasts commingle on their own, but I thought the fridge might slow them down. So I assumed the lovely froth I found on the top was from the upper layers, which I wasted on pancakes. In any event, I had no trouble reviving the older bottom layer.)

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