I am having a really hard time with my sourdough starter and making the bread. The issues range all over the place.. so let me just list them off since they're not really related: 1. I'm part of a bread forum and getting information from well intended bread enthusiasts is as easy as choosing a religion. Everyone swears by their advice and everything ends with "trust me, this will work." :) I'm not upset over it, but I just want a simple sourdough starter. I tried just mixing flour and water with a pinch of salt… it smelt like dirty (insert your expletive here). The yeast water I made smelled like a dead body after about 5 days of culturing it and changing out the water once. Is everything for sourdough supposed to be so rank? Does the rank stage pass and THEN you get sourdough starter? No one seems to talk about the stink. My end goal is the perfect sourdough baguette. That's all. Nothing super hard or fancy. 2. My sourdough starter is always tiny, frothy bubbles. Other peoples are big, airy holes. How do I get the big, airy holes? How do I get big, cavern-like holes throughout my SD starter rather than just pin-head frothy bubbles with a few "small" ones on the surface? I want the big, airy holes in my crumb. 3. People pressure me about rye starter, but rye bread is too rich and dense for me, and rye starter sour's amazing but has zero rise. When I tossed out 80% of the established rye starter and added AP to lighten up the mixture, I got ripped a new one by a few people. What's with this mentality that a great SD starter has to be 100% rye? I don't like rye enough to make mine all rye. I know starter with AP or wheat is possible, but it doesn't seem to "sour" like I'd like it to. Not like the rye flour starter does. How long does it take for AP to turn into a great starter? And again, is the funk smell normal? 4. Why do I always hear about pizza/bread stones cracking? Do you know? I just bought one and I don't want it to break. 5. Is using dry active yeast in dough considered sacrilege to making good bread? Is there any way to get the same crumb with no yeast additives?

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