Have you bought a sour dough starter off of Ebay?

Off EBay? No. But my sisters have purchased starter from the Southern Sourdough Co. and they both loved their sourdough.

thesouthernsourdoughco.myshopify.com

A girl I grew up with sells a kamut flour sourdough start: www.thefoodnanny.com/collections/kamut-salt/products/kamut-dehydrated-starter-etta

Question: could your starter be so good because you have access to better flours? I am not sure I like the flour we get that much. I hear wonderful things about American flour.

It's flour and water.  No talent is needed.  As for patience, you will still have to feed it so if you don't want to do that, then it is a wasted effort.  You put equal parts flour and hot water into the jar.  Do it every day for a few weeks (keep it in the fridge) and you have a starter.  It's not hard at all.  I have the jar that is made for starters.  Occasionally, I have to clean out the jar.  I take out the starter, wash the jar really well and make sure it is completely dry and then put the starter back in.  Once it is established, you only need to feed it every week or so.  I started mine during the pandemic and it's still going strong. 

At the beginning of Covid there was a "Tiny Starter" situation happening on Instagram. It allowed you to start small so you weren't wasting flour (this was when stuff was flying off the shelves as quickly as it was stocked).

It makes a real good starter.

This was the first Instagram post about it. You can keep scrolling on his IG to find all the posts.

This is his 2.0 version, about 7-8 months down the road. That link takes you to his blog.

I bought starter at the beginning  of the pandemic from a supplier near me that taught classes at a local shop here. It came dried - I still had to add liquid to it and feed it. I've never seen a place  you could order live starter from! But then again I've never really looked into it.