Caring for Your Sourdough Starter

 

Adapted from Farmhouse on Boone. They get the credit!

If you are reading this, I have given you some of my starter and now you are wondering, "What do I do with this?" You need to feed and care for your starter. Hopefully, this will help. 

Your starter has arrived from me well fed. You can place it in the refrigerator for a week until feeding it again. Or you can get started on baking. Your choice!

Feeding Your Sourdough

• Eyeball approximately how much sourdough starter you already have. I don't weigh or measure, but you can, if you wish. There are plenty of recipies online to help with that. 
• Feed it at least that much in equal parts of flour and water. For example, if you have about 1 cup of sourdough starter, you will want to feed it at at least 1/2 cup filered or bottled slightly warm water and 1/2 cup flour. I add the flour first and then see how much water I need.
• Mix it up. The consistency should be similar to pancake batter. 
• Cover with either a tea towel or a loose lid. 
• Allow to sit for 4-12 hours before using in a recipe. You can use it once it has about doubled in volume, has a lot of bubbles, and a bit of it will float in water. For me, it's usually 4 hours. 
• Put it back in the fridge if not using for baking or if you plan to bake often, you can leave it on the counter and feed it every 12-24 hours. 
• Discard some of your starter when your container starts to get too full. You can use this discard in recipes for pancakes and other quick discard recipies, if you like. It's ok to just put it in the garbage, too. However, it's not a good idea to put discarded starter down the sink. Flour and water makes one of the toughest adhesives (ever do paper mache?). It can clog your pipes. Discard starter into the trash, and when you rise out your starter jars in the sink, use lots of hot water to make it dissolve. 

Maintaining A Sourdough Starter

• Maintenance is fairly simple. Like anything living, it requires food and water. The location you keep your starter in will determine how you maintain it. 
• Leaving it out on the counter, it will need to be fed equal parts water and flour every 12-24 hours. Warmer homes or frequent baking will require more frequent feeding (around every 12 hours), while colder homes every 24 hours.
• Storing your sourdough starter in the fridge will require feeding around once a week. It can, however, be stored up to two months in the fridge without being fed.
• Reviving a sourdough starter that has been stored in the fridge for a longer period of time is a good idea. This can be done by feeding it equal parts flour and water, allowing it to sit at room temperature for 12 hours, and then feeding it again. 
• It may need to be fed 2-3 times for 12 hours between each feeding before it becomes active enough to make certain recipes like bread. Some no-wait recipes you may be able to use sooner. 
• Pour off any hooch (if there is any, see below) before feeding.

How Often Should I Feed my Sourdough Starter?

• That totally depends on how often you are going to use it.
• Say you are going to use your starter to make pancakes every morning, or english muffins, or french toast. You can leave your starter out on your counter and just feed it every 12-24 hours.
• I do not use my starter every day. I use it on weekends, so what I do is keep it in the refrigerator with an airtight lid or glass lid. To illustrate, say that it is Friday, and on Saturday, I want to make pancakes. I will pull my sourdough starter out of the fridge on Friday and add some flour and water, mix it up, and leave it on the counter with a tea towel covering it until Saturday morning. Once I am done making pancakes on Saturday, and if I am not planning on using my sourdough starter until next week, I will feed it and leave it on the counter for 8 hours, then cover the bowl with an airtight lid and leave it in the refrigerator until next Friday. However, let us say that I am planning on using my sourdough starter again on Sunday to make cinnamon rolls, then I will just feed the sourdough starter and leave it on the counter until Sunday.
• When you leave sourdough on the counter at room temperature, the yeast will again be nice and active, and it will become a bubbly sourdough starter. 

Feeding a sourdough starter in the refrigerator

• When you put your starter in the refrigerator, it puts the starter on pause, so you do not have to feed it as often because the yeast will relax and they do not need much sustenance. You can kind of think of it like a bear hibernating in the winter.
• When the sourdough starter is in the fridge, it does not need to be fed as much as it does when it is on the counter. On the counter, it needs to be fed daily, but in the fridge, it only needs to be fed once a week. 
• You can even switch back and forth between the refrigerator and the counter if you use it sporadically.

Baking Schedules 

Weekend: Since I usually bake on weekends, I leave my starter in the fridge all week, and then on Friday, I start baking: 

• Friday night: I take the starter out of the fridge, I put it in a clean jar, and I feed it. I discard some if it will be too full when it doubles in size.  I leave it on the counter without the lid and covered by a kitchen towel (5 mins)
• Saturday morning: I feed it again and let it sit. (5 mins)
• Saturday afternoon: I feed again around 3 pm in the afternoon (5 mins)
• Saturday night: After about 4 hours, the starter is ready to use. I mix the batter for the dough and then leave it to do the bulk rise overnight. (8-12 hours). I go to sleep. 
• Sunday morning: I shape the dough and set it up for the second rise (1-2 hours). Then I bake. 

Weekday: Sometimes I will bake on a weekday when I am working. Here is how I manage it. 

• Morning before wanting to bake: I take the starter out of the fridge, I put it in a clean jar, and I feed it. I discard some if it will be too full when it doubles in size.  I leave it on the counter without the lid and covered by a kitchen towel (5 mins). I go to work. 
• Evening before I want to bake: I feed it again at 5:30 when I get home from work.  (5 mins). It rises and is ready to use by 9:00-9:30. I mix the batter for the dough and then leave it to do the bulk rise overnight. (8-12 hours). I go to sleep. 
• Morning of the day I want to bake: I shape the dough and set it up for the second rise, I put it in the fridge. I go to work.  
• Evening of the day I want to bake: I take the loaves out of the fridge and let them warm up and rise. Then I bake.