In a previous post I discussed why I stopped baking with wheat and started baking with sourdough.  In this post, I’m going to discus how to keep your sourdough starter alive and healthy.

Because your sourdough starter is essentially alive, you need to feed it.  “Feeding the starter” simply means adding flour and water.  You always feed the starter in the following ratio:

• 1 part water
• 2 parts flour (I use unbleached white all-purpose flour*)

What the “part” is depends on how much sourdough starter* you already have.  If you have 1/2 cup starter, add 1/2 cup water and 1 cup flour.  If you have 1 cup starter, add 1 cup water and 2 cups flour.  You don’t have to exactly measure how much starter you have.  Stir it down first and then approximate how much starter you have.  Starter is very forgiving and it is very difficulty to over-feed or under-feed it in my experience.

Because I have such a large family, I deal with lots of starter and I keep it in this dough bucket*:

When I have lots of starter in the bucket, I just regularly add 1 cup water and 2 cups flour because otherwise it would outgrow the bucket.  So if there is 6 cups of starter in there, I do NOT add 6 cups water and 12 cups of flour.  I simply add 1 cup of water and 2 cups of flour.

Once you have added the flour and water, you need to stir the starter to incorporate the flour and water.

The starter may seem fairly dry when you first feed it.

But as the sourdough eats the flour, it will produce air bubbles and become less dry.

If you are concerned that your starter is too dry or two wet, you can do exact measurements for a few days and you’ll quickly get to the right consistency.  So start with 1/2 cup of your starter and feed it 1/2 cup water and one cup flour.  Wait 6-12 hours.  Stir it again and pull out 1/2 cup starter.  Mix this 1/2 cup starter again with 1/2 cup water and 1 cup flour.  Do this a few times and you’ll get an idea of how the consistency changes over time and what it should be.

If I am keeping my starter active (keeping it out of the refrigerator), I feed it at least once a day.  There have been times when we are making a lot of sourdough and I have fed the starter up to 3 times a day because I want to increase it so that I can bake large quantities of yummy stuff.  But generally once a day is sufficient to keep your starter happy.

If you are not going to be baking with your sourdough frequently, or if you are going on vacation, you can store your starter in the fridge.  The cold will make your sourdough starter inactive so that it does not need to be fed.  When it is in the refrigerator, I will try to feed it at least once a week, but I have gone two weeks between feedings and the starter has still been fine when I took it out of the refrigerator.

When you take the starter out of the refrigerator, it will be sluggish for a while.  Feed it at least 3 times before using it to bake.  If you use it right out of the refrigerator it is safe, but whatever you are baking won’t rise very well.

Please let me know if you have any questions on how to keep your sourdough starter alive and happy.  During the next sourdough post, I’ll be discussing how to use your starter to make bread.

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