Feeding Sourdough Starter

The most frequently asked Sourdough questions I get are, “How often should I be feeding my sourdough starter,” and, “What ratios should I use when feeding sourdough starter?”  I’m going to answer both of those questions and share some additional tips I’ve picked up along my own Sourdough journey.

The truth is, you can feed your starter as often as you want to, it just depends on how much bread  or other fermented dough items you want to make.  During the cooler months, I like to make a lot of bread, cinnamon rolls, and discard recipes, and I don’t mind heating up the house with the oven, so I feed my starter much more frequently.  During the Summer, when I try to keep the house cooler, I don’t bake weekly, so my Sourdough Starter lives in the refrigerator and only gets fed once every 7-10 days.  In fact, if you go on vacation, or need to give yourself a longer break from baking, a healthy starter can usually survive in your refrigerator, unfed, for up to 3 weeks (maybe even longer).  More on that later.

Why do we feed starter?  If you are making a loaf of traditional Sourdough Bread, you will want to use active, fed starter for the recipe.  I recommend feeding your starter when it’s at room temperature, so if you keep it in the fridge, pull it out a few hours before you plan to feed it.  Once its close to room temp, you’ll notice the consistency is a little looser, and you might even have some bubbly activity happening as the yeast wakes up. At this point the starter microbial action is alert and its ready to be fed.  In fact, if you smell your starter when it’s unfed, it may be giving off a strong odor, indicative of a hungry starter.  This is totally NORMAL, and no cause for alarm.  The more you work with your starter, the more familiar you will become with it’s little nuances and odors.

Now for the actual feeding instructions.  I personally like feeding equal ratios and not measuring precisely.  What does that mean?  Well, I choose to feed by visual volume estimates rather than calculated quantities.  So if I have an inch of starter in my jar, I will add an inch of unbleached bread flour on top of it, and then I will add enough filtered water to get the starter to the right consistency.  Ideally I want my starter to resemble a thicker pancake batter.  If you want exact ratios, I’m sure someone has great recommendations online...I just like to take away some of the stress of making bread, and feed by what I see.  (I save the technical weighing of ingredients for my dough assembly or for the creation of a brand new starter). My method has always produced a super active, bubbling starter that more than doubles in size and creates delicious breads and pasteries.

How do we know the fed starter is ready to be used?  When you see that it has formed bubbles and is no longer dome-shaped on top, it should be ready to use.  As the yeast in the starter works to devour all that new food (ie. the flour), it will begin to increase in volume.  You can watch it’s progress because it will become domed shaped on top, and if you use a rubber band around your jar to indicate the starting level, you can see the progress it’s making.  I check my fed starter frequently, especially if my jar is really full, because sometimes it will spill over and onto my counter.  The rate of rise will vary depending on numerous factors, but starter temp and environmental temps have a large part in it.  A warmer house will make the starter rise more quickly.  Right now my fed starter will rise and be ready to use in about 6 hours, but in the winter time, it may take a full day to become active enough to rise.  I also don’t usually refrigerate my starter during the winter, and instead keep it on my counter 24/7.

What should you feed your sourdough starter?  This is going to vary dramatically with each baker.  I personally use unbleached, organic bread flour when I feed my starter AND when I make my basic artisan sourdough bread recipe.  Occasionally I will use All Purpose Flour (also unbleached and organic if possible), but that’s only if I ran out of bread flour.  Some people will feed with rye flour, or with various ground wheat flours.  This is not my area of expertise, but I do know that different flours will require more water and may also increase the activity.  There is absolutely no reason to add things like sugars, commercial yeast, or anything else to your sourdough starter.  As I mentioned before, the naturally occurring yeast from the unbleached flour and the surrounding environment will create the bacterial action that forms sourdough bread.  That yeast feeds on flour and doesn’t need the addition of sugars.

Now to address the topic of rest periods for your starter.  If you need to take a break or go out of town, or maybe you just don’t want to make fresh bread this month, that’s ok.  You can put your starter into the refrigerator, and it will typically do just fine.  I always make sure to have a glass lid on my glass jar.  I don’t actually seal it down, but glass is usually heavy enough to keep airborne contaminates out and keep the starter fresh inside.  I would discourage putting a paper towel, or something like cheesecloth on top when it’s in the refrigerator for an extended period of time because that may allow in too much moisture and increase the risk of mold.  Mold is a topic for another blog...just remember, your refrigerated starter may form a layer of liquid (called hooch), or even have some slight texture and color changes, and it’s not necessarily mold.  So before you throw it out, do research.

In closing, I leave you with this sentiment...a Fed Sourdough Starter is a Happy Sourdough Starter.  Enjoy your Sourdough Journey, and keep checking back for more Sourdough content.  Have a great day!

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