Starting a starter

Hi, Shelly. I´m introducing myself to this stuff of sourdough too, but for me it´s a little more complicated, ´cause I live in Brazil, where flour is just horrible. We have a very low protein content on our flour, and especially when it comes to whole wheat flour, it´s often adulterated with oder stuff (here it´s very common we find something called "farinha de rosca" (in portuguese) added to the flour, that I could translate more or so like "bread crumbs flour" because it´s nothing else than bread leftovers turned into flour). But then again, they mix that into our flour in order to adulterate it, and despite being made from bread, let´s be honest, its not flour itself, so it wont work like the real thing. But about the sourdough,  I´ve never succeded in making it, because there´s always that strange yellow fluid running aroun the mixture after some time of combining the ingredients, and the misterious fermentation bubbles never really show up. I guess the organisms in the flour act too quickly or are very different from yours there in USA, so I´m almost giving up on trying to create the bugs.....

You can get started with a packaged starter, but eventually it will settle down to whatever your local flora are - it won't retain the original characteristics forever. You should notice some differences in flavour in the first few batches - although of course that will also depend on the flour you use.