How to Feed and Maintain your Sourdough Starter: Jess's Simple Way

You've taken my class, aced your first sourdough loaf from class and excited to continue your sourdough journey. Now you need to grasp the concept of how to feed & maintain your new food pet. It's not as time consuimg as it sounds, I promise. In this article I will share my top tips for caring for it to ensure you maintain a healthy, happy & well balanced starter that will leaven your loaves for many years to come.

What Is A Sourdough Starter?

Its simply a live, fermented culture of flour and water. A colony of living micro organisms. A symbiotic culture of yeast and bacteria. Since they come from "wild sources" (unlike packaged commercial yeast) , they can be a little unpredictable. Every starter adapts to its environment. My kitchen where my starter is stored is different then yours because it takes in those ambient yeasts individual to YOU and your environment. Each loaf turns our slightly different and thats one of the things I love about sourdough. Each loaf is its own unique masterpiece.

Because its alive and there are billions of tiny active soldiers in there, it requires regular feeding - Just like kids, right? I've got 2 boys and I'll tell you.....feeding my starter is way easier!

Importance of Feeding Your Starter The Correct Ratio

An established sourdough starter is maintained with feedings of flour and water. The water activates the good bacteria and wild yeasts. Over the span of 4-12 hours, the microorganisms in the starter eat the flour and release carbon dioxide, producing bubbles. Once the starter is bubbly, and doubled (or more ) in size, the starter is considered at peak. THIS is the ideal time to make bread with your starter.

As a general rule, keep your mature starter in your fridge until you are ready to use it.

You want to feed your starter at MINIMUM equal parts Starter, Flour & Water. This is called a 1:1:1 Feeding ratio. This is a fundamental rule for maintaining a healthy starter. This ensures you have a healthy balance , to lower the chances of too much acidity building up over time, therefore causing an imbalance, overly acidic & weak starter that will no longer leaven your bread properly.

For example 1:1:1 ratio: You have 20 grams starter. This means you would need to feed it a minimum of 20 grams of flour and 20 grams of water. Simple, right?

Now, having said that.....the more fresh flour & water , the better. Think about it......There are BILLIONS of active soldiers in there. If you feed them just barely enough to keep them satisfied, Yes, they will do their job , but , not at their 100% best. An easy way to think about it, is you barely eating a light snack for breakfast. Yes, you will be able to go to work and perform ' OK' , but you'll likely be moody , hungry ( or Hangry) and not do your best. Now , if you ate a full course breakfast with lots of protein and healthy fats, you'll be full until lunch , happy and READY to tackle on the day. Same concept for these little soldiers.

With that explanation out of the way, I'll go ahead and let you know that my go-to feeding ratio is 1/5/5. ( 1/2/2 and 1/3/3 and 1/4/4 are great ratios also)

Example of a 1/5/5 ratio: 20 grams starter, 100 grams flour , 100 grams water. This will give them 5X the amount of food and lots of fresh yeasts and proteins to be able to keep them happy and stronger for a longer period of time.

Establishing a Baking Schedule

While the most important part of feeding and maintining your starter is the actual feeding, a big part of the learning curve is learning how much you'll actually be baking . This will affect how you store and feed it.

Now that you have a basic understanding of ratios, the next concept to grasp is timing.

Depending on how much you feed your starter, affects how quickly it will rise & be ready to use in your recipe. If I feed an equal ratio 1 part starter/1 part flour /1 water, it will reach it's peak in typically 3/4 hours. But if I feed it a 1/5/5 ratio , it will peak in 7-8 hours.

Note: Rising time does also depend on temperature , so these times will fluctuate depending on the seasons.

Keep this in mind when deciding how much to feed your starter. You want to use your starter at its PEAK. meaning, its doubled, risen and is FIXING to fall back down and repeat the process all over again. You want to catch it right as it Peaks, before it falls back down. That is when its at its strongest point and will have it's most leavening power.

Example baking schedule: I want to make bread Friday at 6AM. I will feed my starter THURSDAY NIGHT @ 10 PM with a 1/5/5 ratio. Feeding this ratio, in my Florida summer home will reach its Peak in roughly 8 hours. So by 6 AM its at its peak and I start mixing it in my dough.

But lets say Im in a rush and I want it to rise quickly. In that case I would feed it a 1/1/1 ratio so it will Peak in 3/4 hours instaed of 8. The more you feed it, the longer it will take to Peak, the less you feed it, the faster it will reach its peak. Make sense?

As you begin experimenting, I suggest to have a little notebook handy. Begin to take brief notes of your feeding/rising times. That way you can look back and start to see the pattern of how quickly it peaks at different feeding ratios in your particular kitchen environment. Pretty soon it will become second nature and you won't even have to really think much when deciding how much to feed it.

Don't forget to Discard! What is sourdough DISCARD?

Sourdough discard simply refers to the excess starter that remains after it doubles in size and begins to fall back down. Its your same sourdough starter , just at a different phase in the process. "ACTIVE" is at the phase where its been fed within the prior 12 hours. "DISCARD" is in the phase where its no longer growing, and begins to fall back down. At any point in time, "discard" can be turned into "active" starter again just by feeding it. This term can be deceiving though as “discard” doesn’t mean it’s unusable or wasted. A better way to think of it is as leftovers.

When sourdough starter becomes sourdough discard you have two options.

Feed all of the discard. ( Keep in mind that minimum 1:1:1 ratio!) If you used up most of your starter to make bread and only have a little bit left you can refeed all of your discard to reactivate the starter & go ahead and stick it in the fridge so its happy and on "slow motion" mode until the next time you area ready to start the whole process over again.
Refeed some of the discard AND save some of the discard. If you still have a lot of left over starter in your jar after using it you most likely will want to get rid of some starter before refeeding it. So keep some in a separate jar in the fridge and label it DISCARD and use that in all your discard recipes.

Why Use Sourdough Discard in Receipes?

I love adding discard to literally everything! Here are a few reasons to use discard in your recipes.

The acidity of the discard helps prevent tough gluten strands from forming. This will result in tender and moist baked goods.
When discard is coupled with a long ferment, it can aid in digestion and help nutrients be more bioavailable to your body.
It adds a depth of flavor to any recipe and can even balance out sweeter treats
The added fermented discard can slightly prolong the shelf life of your baked good, keeping it fresher for longer.

I hope you have found this helplful and if you want to follow along for more free tips and videos, be sure to follow my facebook page!

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