For those with experience with bread starters

Hey folks,

Flung together a starter about a week ago and it's coming along nicely, though as of yesterday the smell's got pretty potent. Up until now it had a normal yeasty/sour smell, though after dumping half of it and replenishing it's taken on a slight paint thinner smell.

I use a natural starter at work, so I'm pretty comfortable with looking after it, but the work starter is like 6 years old so it's pretty stable. Curious if anyone here has experience with new starters and whether they ever encountered the strong alcohol-like smell? Gonna pick up some PH strips this week to make sure it's where it should be in that regard.

Oh, and it's just a 50/50 mix of strong flour and spring water.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Josh

Finally a topic here I can help with, lol.

First a little info:
How much starter are you maintaining?
How much do you discard at each feeding?
How much are you feeding?
Feeding schedule?