sourdough culture contamination question 2

[markus1984]

I went through the most of what's been said here and found no help, so here's what the story is, hope somebody could help. I got 3 different cultures from sourdo.com, i started the first italian and after a day it had a nice smell which i would compare to fresh sour gerkins, then the smell turned to very bad and strong which indicated it got contaminated, it was still this kind of smell but very strong and going bad, so i washed and put into proofing box and started two other cultures the sime time at the same box, the smell never came back, all 3 cultures smell the same in any given inviroment or temperature, i tried every kind of thing, washing, different proofing times and temps and no results, the cultures sure are somehow active which mean they grow but not much and the taste is always the same acidic and nothing more, i did bake with it and the bread or pizza did bake but no taste except the acidy salty, i may be a begginer but belive me i thought it thru by many angles so just assume i am doin the steps right and if so is it possible that i destroyed the cultures by proofing them seperate jars but same box at a time? i would be very hapy if that is the case as it has been almost 2 months me strugling with it and a great solution would be buying nev starter and activating:) other than that i have no idea what to do.. any clues? thanks for any, Adam
p.s. are there any other members from Poland here?

[Bill/SFNM]

Not sure what happened to your cultures, but I would never try to activate more than one culture at a time. During activation, the culture is at its most vulnerable. Its members are very weak and exposed to unfamiliar and unstable conditions: pH, ionic balance, etc.  It can be easy to do something small that results in millions of deaths! Perhaps something like using the same whisk without completely cleaning it could be enough to turn the tide.

If I were you I would get some new cultures and try to activate only one. I would activate it very carefully, making sure conditions are ideal every step of the way. It can take a while and many feedings until the culture is healthy and reach a state of equilibrium so that it can produce satisfactory and predictable results. Only then would I venture to activate a second culture.

I NEVER have more than one of them out of the refrigerator at a time just to make sure I don't do something stupid.