The starter is complete!

Day5, the starter is complete and ready to be made into bread! Today I took a bit from the "mother starter" and "fed" it so that tomorrow I can begin the baking process, which can be done in one or two days. I'm hoping this works since it's so involved. I smelled the starter earlier, it smelled sour, which I assume to be a good thing. In case anyone was wondering, a starter is dough that has continually reproducing yeast that you feed and grow to an adequate state to use in leavening your bread. The barm, or mother starter can now just sit in the refrigerator and be refreshed (basically, fed) when you want to make a loaf. Eventually the active enzymes break down most of the gluten (see lovely gluten strands above) and it looks more like soup, but can be easily refreshed by discarding most and then adding a varied amount of flour/water depending on your desired outcome-such as more barm: feed ratio results a more sour taste while the opposite will give a sweeter taste. There are numerous methods and variations, resulting in limitless possibilities, from how you make your starter, to what you add into the bread. I used a three step build, but there are 5 or 6 step builds as well, it all depends on what flavor you are attempting to achieve. Since I'm new to the sourdough world I thought I would start in the middle, then adjust from there.