There are many effective ways to manage your sourdough starter and the best one for you is the one that best fits your particular needs and desires — how fast you want your dough to rise, how often you want to feed your starter, how many jars you want in your refrigerator or on your counter, how much flour you are comfortable throwing out or how many starter discard baked goods you want to make, like pancakes, crackers, and naan.
The method that usually works best for me is to have just one jar of starter and no, or only very occasional, discarding. I’ll guide you through this method and you might want to give it a try or at least take away some of the concepts, but you might also try Eric’s more familiar method described here or @homebreadbaker’s monthly (or less often) feeding method that we tested here. Hint: it works great. There are also other methods of no-discard starter management apart from the one I’ll describe below, like the scrapings approach of Baked by Jack. He refrigerates the starter jar with just a scraping of starter in it after mixing a dough. In contrast, I feed the scrapings once while my dough is rising and then refrigerate the jar.
Before we dive in to the details, I should explain that sourdough starter has a life cycle of feeding and multiplying and dying (or being used in dough). So the guide below highlights five points in a cycle beginning and ending at the same point to show the full process, and the point I chose to begin with is when the starter is ready to use in a dough. Additionally, it is much easier to write about starter feeding ratios in weight (grams), but I put a small conversion chart at the end of this article if you prefer to work in volume and additional conversions can be calculated or found via an internet search.
1. Ripe starter that is ready to use
Below are photos of about 90 grams of bubbly, ready-to-use sourdough starter. The rubber band marks the original level and the starter has at least doubled in size.
2. Most of the starter goes into a dough and the remainder is fed
After I scoop out starter from the jar to mix into a bread dough, there is very little left. As it was ripening, the starter consumed most of the “food” so now it could use another feed. I estimate this thin layer of remaining starter is about 20 grams worth. If you know what your jar weighs when it’s empty, then you can subtract the jar weight from the jar-plus-smear weight to get a precise amount if you don’t feel comfortable eyeballing it.
In this scenario, I’m not trying to create a lot of starter for a near-future bake, so I’ll only do a “1:1:1” ratio feed. I’ll add 20 grams flour and 20 grams water to the 20 grams sourdough starter. This is called a 1:1:1 ratio feed because the existing starter, the new flour, and the new water all weigh the same amount.
Ratios Part 1
You should almost always feed your starter a ratio of at least 1:1:1 and let the starter ripen before you feed it again. However, rules can be broken here and there as you’ll see below.
With a 1:1:1 feed, if you have 20 grams of sourdough starter, you would feed it 20 grams water and 20 grams flour. For a higher ratio feed, you might do 1:2:2 (20:40:40) or even higher like 1:6:6 (e.g. 20:120:120).
A higher ratio feed means the starter will peak later because there is a lot of food to consume for a relatively smaller amount of microbes. This type of feed is one way to delay the ripening of your starter and it can also be a way to create a lot of starter, but not necessarily. If you only start with 3 grams of starter, feeding it 30 grams flour and 30 grams water is an extremely high ratio (1:10:10) but only makes 63 grams of starter in the end.
An occasional low ratio feed or “snack” e.g. 1:0.5:0.5 is okay, but if you do this several times in a row, the starter can starve. Likewise, doing several high ratio feeds or “buffets” in a row and not giving the starter time to eat/ripen in between will reduce the microbial density in your starter. Several feedings like this in a row and your starter will be less effective without some ripening time at room temperature to get lively again (eating and multiplying).
After thoroughly mixing with a fork or small Danish dough whisk, I clean the sides of the jar with a silicone spatula and mark the level of the starter with a rubber band around the jar.
3. The starter is at least partially ripened and then refrigerated
I let the starter sit at room temperature for as long as necessary for it to expand by 50% to 100%. That means it is between halfway and completely doubled. The starter in the photo below is ready to go into the refrigerator. It took about 5 hours to get to this degree of expansion in a cold kitchen. It’ll stay in the refrigerator until the night before or the actual day that I plan to bake again.
4. Deciding whether and how to feed the starter again before the next bake
When I want to bake again, I consider how much starter I’ll need for the dough(s) and how long the starter has been in the refrigerator. If it has been refrigerated three days or less, I’m comfortable using the starter “as is” without another feeding — as long as I have enough for the recipe. Using starter that has been in the refrigerator for a few days makes the dough take a little longer to rise, but this is usually fine for my schedule, and some of the delay can be offset by using warmer water in the dough if needed.
If I need more starter, or want it to be at peak ripeness, or the starter has been refrigerated for more than three days; then I will do another feed before using it.
Ratios Part 2
For the 60 grams of starter in the refrigerated jar (last feed was 20+20+20), I would probably do a 1:1:1 feed to have 180 grams of ripe (doubled) starter about 4-6 hours later. Then I’d mix two doughs with it, which would leave me 20 grams starter in the jar again. (The two doughs would rise for most of the day and then I’d shape and refrigerate them for the final proof overnight.)
But if I’m planning to make dough that takes longer to rise or I just want to mix first thing in the morning, I might do a 1:1:1 feed the night before but use cold water and put the jar to ripen in a small bowl of ice cubes. This way the first few hours of starter growth are quite slow while the ice is melting around the jar. The goal is for there to be enough food for the starter to take all night to ripen, rather than have it peak at 1am and be deflated with microbes dying off at 7am. Keep in mind that seasonal differences in kitchen temperature can greatly impact the feed ratio and water temp that gets a starter through the night. Lowering the hydration of the sourdough starter — making it more like a dough ball than a batter — will also slow down the ripening, but this may require recipe hydration adjustments later (which you may or may not want to do); you’d have to remember to add the water that didn’t go into the starter to the dough.
Another option for having ripe starter first thing in the morning is to do a 1:2:2 or higher feed ratio the night before. Here is where I might discard a little starter to avoid wasting a lot of flour. For example, if I discard 35 grams of starter (that means throwing away only 17.5 grams flour) from the jar of 60 grams, I have 25 grams starter left. A 1:3:3 feed starting with 25 grams is 25+75+75 = 175 grams total starter, which is about the same as the 1:1:1 feed described above. If I had done a 1:3:3 feed without discarding, we’d be looking at 60+180+180 = 420 grams sourdough starter. Unless I’m making ciabatta, which uses a lot of sourdough starter, many loaves of bread, or a discard recipe, I don’t need that much starter.
5. Ripe starter that is ready to use
This brings us back to having ripe starter that is ready to use. Whether it was ripened three days ago and refrigerated, or ripened overnight with an additional feed; most of it will go into a dough and the rest can be fed, 50-100% ripened, and refrigerated again.
All these process steps aside, the most important thing is to observe your starter (just like you should be observing your dough). Keep your starter in a clear container and look at it at different stages, open the lid and smell it, and note the consistency when you stir it. Over time, you’ll be able to tie the observations you make to the sourdough starter life cycle and also how your starter affects your dough.
Notes and Observations
If I refrigerate my starter at less expansion, say only 50%, it can last in the refrigerator longer without falling and getting liquid on top (called hootch). But if I choose to pull it out of the refrigerator sooner (rather than many days later), it will start expanding again as it warms up. I assume this is because there was uneaten food and a still vibrant microbial population.
My starter performs well when I give it a snack before using it. If my dough mixing gets delayed by some unforseen circ*mstance, I might add a little flour and water to the already peaked starter. The starter won’t double of course because I’ve stirred it down and it didn’t have a full feed, but the fresh food keeps the population of microbes mutiplying for a couple hours while I handle whatever was delaying the dough mixing. I then feed it 1:1:1 after I use it, as described above.
When a refrigerated starter is left long enough to rise and subsequently fall in the jar, it develops a layer of hootch and over time it will become more acidic and creamy as opposed to stretchy. It can still make a dough rise but for overall flavor and gluten strength, it’s best to not use large amounts of it in this condition in a dough. When you use just a small amount of unfed starter, the dough will need far longer to rise, but with patience it will come out great.
If you don’t have a scale:
30g starter = approx. 2 Tbsp, (depending on whether it has been stirred and the bubbles popped or not)
30g water = 2 Tbsp water
30g flour = ¼ cup
