How to Feed and Maintain a Sourdough Starter

Whether you are here from my How to Make a Sourdough Starter guide, or you crash-landed here from the vast interwebs, I wholeheartedly welcome you and I hope you'll find this post informative and helpful.

If you are new to my page, I love sharing sourdough and sourdough discard recipes and I have a very laid-back, inclusive, and no-nonsense attitude when it comes to sourdough. I love encouraging and teaching others how to begin their sourdough journeys. I send out a weekly newsletter which is actually where I gathered many of the faqs in this post. Sign up here for weekly recipes and sourdough tips: WTK Weekly Newsletter

I believe that anyone can make a sourdough starter and eventually a beautiful loaf of Artisan Sourdough Bread without any special tools, fancy techniques, strict rules, or prior experience.

In this post we will focus on feeding and maintaining an established starter while also troubleshooting common sourdough starter issues and answering faqs. I plan to update this post frequently with new questions that come up, so please leave your questions in the comments section below if you don't see them addressed in this post.

What You Need: Equipment and Supplies

• An established sourdough starter - whether you have purchased a starter, been gifted one from a friend, or you made your own, you'll need one for this guide to be useful. If you don't have one yet, you can start today with some flour and water and have one in 9-14 days using my How to Make a Sourdough Starter guide.
• Flour: I prefer unbleached all purpose or bread flour for feedings but we will go more in depth into flour varieties below.
• Water: room temperature non-chlorinated water
• Jar: a sturdy glass jar is my choice. I prefer Weck jars for their straight sides but you can use any jar or container you prefer - it does not have to be fancy.

Optional items that come in handy

• Scale: Not essential but it can come in handy if you are more of a stickler.
• Rubber Band: for marking the starting point so it is easier to check for doubling.

How Often to Feed Your Sourdough Starter

This will depend on how often you plan to bake so I'll break it down into those categories.

• If you bake every day or every other day: you'll leave your starter on the counter at room temp and feed it daily after each use.
• If you plan to bake once a week, you'll store your starter in the refrigerator. The night before you want to bake, pull the starter out of the refrigerator, discard if needed, and feed.
• If you plan to bake once a month or very infrequently, you'll still want to give your starter a feeding every week or two to keep it lively. And then the night before you plan to bake, you'll pull it from the fridge and give it a good feeding so it will be ready for you the next morning.

What Type of Flour to Feed Your Sourdough Starter

There is no right answer here, but I will tell you what has worked best for me. Over the years I have used practically every flour you can imagine in my starter at one point or another. But for regular, predictable feedings I prefer to use King Arthur Organic Bread Flour because it creates a nice, strong starter with great webbing that holds at peak for quite some time.

When you use whole wheat flours or freshly milled flours to feed your starter they will ferment and fall much more quickly than a plain white bread flour. This doesn't mean you shouldn't use them - just be aware that you'll have to act faster to use them when they are at that perfect peak stage.

I have little kids dictating my schedule, which is why I like a stiffer starter - it's nice to know I can be a little flexible with my timing and my starter will hold on for me until I'm ready.

What if you leave your starter in the refrigerator for a long time?

Life gets busy and sometimes despite our best intentions, we ignore and neglect our beloved starters. If this happens, don't fear - you do not need to start all over again. As long as there's no mold, you can revive your starter after months (and even years!) of fridge time. It will take a few feedings to come back to life, but I promise it will and I do speak from experience. side note: I have never had a starter go moldy - I know it happens but in all my years I've never seen it.

After a long time in the refrigerator, your sourdough starter will undoubtedly have a layer of dark liquid on top - this is called hooch and it is a sign that your starter is very hungry. You can simply pour it off and proceed with feeding. When you pour it off you will see a bumpy surface that almost looks like craters. These are called hooch volcanoes and they are totally normal but are often mistaken for mold.

Sourdough starter with a layer of hooch on top

Sourdough starter with hooch volcanoes on the surface

Once you pour off the hooch and discard, you'll treat it like any other feeding, but you'll just want to discard and feed again after 12-24 hours and repeat usually about 3 times until it doubles consistently and builds up strength. This will depend on various factors including length of time in fridge, temperature of your kitchen, and the flour you're using so you'll need to be a little flexible and patient.

The Feeding Process: Step by Step

A basic 1:1:1 feeding regimen looks like this: place one part starter, one part water, and one part flour in a jar, mix well, cover loosely, and leave at room temperature until doubled in size.

I like to feed my starter at night just before I go to bed so I know it will be bubbly and peaked by morning and I can start a loaf or two when I wake up. So around 9 or 10pm I remove any excess starter so I only have a few tablespoons of starter in the jar. To that I add water and then flour and stir until it is a very thick, pasty consistency. I like a stiffer starter these days so I do about a 1:5:5 ratio or 10 grams starter, 50 grams flour, 50 grams water. I never use a scale anymore when feeding my starter because I know the consistency I like. Then I place a lid loosely on my jar and leave it on the counter overnight.

Feeding Ratios Explained

You'll most often see a 1:1:1 ratio (starter:flour:water) in many sourdough and sourdough discard recipes. This means you'll use equal parts by weight of starter, flour, and water. So for example you could use 50 grams of each and you'd have 150 grams of bubbly starter to work with.

The higher the second two numbers are in the equation, the stiffer or less hydrated your starter will be.

The lower the second two numbers are, the looser, more runny, and more hydrated your starter will be.

If you want your starter to rise and peak faster or if you are working in a cooler environment, use a more hydrated starter ratio to speed things up. Keep in mind you will need to feed your starter more frequently with this type of ratio.

If you want a slower rise and longer peak or if you are working in a warmer environment, you can use a stiffer starter ratio to avoid your starter over fermenting and falling before you're ready to use it. Another benefit of this ratio is that you can go much longer between feedings.

This feeding ratios post from Brod and Taylor does an excellent job explaining sourdough starter feeding ratios and provides some visual guides.