Sourdough starter developing alcohol I have been dealing with my sourdough starter since about 1-2 months ago, when I started it from scratch with just water and flour .

In the last 2 refreshments I have added some honey, just 1 teaspoon each time to deliver some easy-to-digest sugar to my sourdough, I don't think it's too much based on the quantities of water and flour . The real difference is that in the past I have used a bowl covered with a wet piece of cloth, but since the last 2 refreshments I have been using a big cylindrical container made of glass with a plastic tap, and it's almost airtight, it's really different from just having a cloth on top of a container .

My sourdough starter was developing a really good smell, it was a "flat" odor of flour mixed to water in the first days, but it developed into something more fruity in the next days/weeks . Now in the new sealed container, stored at room temperature, away from direct sunlight, in the back of my cabinet, it started developing a punchy alcoholic smell .

I suppose that it was something I should expect from bacteria that goes into anaerobic mode, but my questions are about the cooking aspect of this :


what this means for my yeast/sourdough culture, it means it's good an healthy and I should keep storing it this way ?
how to prepare/handle my sourdough when I'll make pizza or bread out of it ? I should just take a piece of it and add it to my ingredients as always ?
If you've truly gone anaerobic and the smell is off, you are growing things other than the intended cultures...

As a rule, I simply feed mine flour and water. No sugar. The cultures can get along fine with the flour. (I did read in a reputable baking book about adding leftover water from boiling potatoes, for the starches, but I haven't had a chance to try.)

If the smell is off, I would dump and start over in a more breathable container. Your entire goal is to grow the sourdough cultures and let them flourish in their happy environment. And as you've smelled, there is a distinctive scent of happy sourdough. Now if the smell has changed, you lost your scented sourdough and are now growing something else. 

I've kept sourdough for over a decade, and it's from a culture that is 84 years old. But if it smells funny (or gets brightly colored mold), he's going down the sink faster than dishwater. It's just the nature of the beast.