Sourdough Basics - Feeding Your (live) Starter
Once your starter is alive and happy, bubbly and sweetly-sour-smelling, you have to keep her alive.
You have two options:
1) Feed her regularly if you bake regularly. Let her live on the counter in a nice warm area and watch her bubble away.
2) If you want to bake sporadically, feed her sporadically, but let her go to sleep in the fridge in between feedings. Take her out of the fridge about an hour (or more) before you feed her to get ready to bake.
What you need to remember:
A starter kept in the fridge can go to sleep for 30 days without feedings (maybe longer but I don’t risk it)
A starter kept at room temp needs to be fed every day
When it’s time to feed, you need a scale, a clean jar, and a non-metal stirring device (see notes below). I use a heavy plastic chopstick. It’s also nice to put a rubber band at the top of the starter to remark on how much she grew!
Place a clean jar on your scale and tare the weight. This sets the scale back to 0 and won’t measure the weight of the jar.
Pour 100g of your hungry starter into the clean jar.
Discard the rest from the old jar. (Pour it in the trash, give it away, or bake it in another recipe. Google Sourdough Discard Recipes and you’ll find lots of great stuff.)
RINSE THE OLD JAR NOW. You don’t want the cement paste that comes from crusty sourdough starter. I keep two jars set aside for feeding my starter. One is currently in use, and one is clean in the cabinet, ready for feeding the next round.
Add 100g flour and 60g filtered water.
Stir it all until it’s fully combined, put the lid on, maybe your rubber band and let it ferment and feed itself until tomorrow.
A NOTE ON FLOUR WHEN FEEDING: I use organic, unbleached flour. Some bakers swear by using a 50/50 mix of AP (all-purpose) and WW (whole wheat) because of the wild yeast in whole grains or throwing bread flour into the mix for extra oomph. Figure out what works best for you, in your kitchen and what you can find at your local spots within your budget. Note that sourdough feeds on gluten. GF sourdough can be done, but that’s a different blog post.
A NOTE ON THE NON-METAL STIRRING DEVICE: A good rule of thumb when dealing with ferments is to steer clear of metal, as fermentation is highly acidic. Look it up for more info if you care. If not, trust. This also goes for the lid of your jar. I get these lids from Amazon for all things fermented.
A NOTE ON AMOUNTS: If you aren’t planning on baking the next day, but want to feed her just because you don’t have to stick to these exact weights, do stick to the percentages of starter:flour: water. So, it also works to use 50g starter+50g flour+30g water. I always feed with a 60% hydration. The water is 60% of the flour. Some recipes don’t call for much starter, so this smaller amount might work better for you. You’ll figure out what works for your baking.
A NOTE ON MY RECIPE NOT HAVING CUP MEASUREMENTS: Get a scale. If you’re going to put all this time, effort, and money into making your bread, do it right.
FINAL NOTE: Write down what you try, what fails, and what works. Eventually, you’ll have your crusty recipe card and you won’t need me.
UP NEXT: Tools and recipes you need to bake your first loaf!