How to Feed & Maintain your Sourdough Starter
You’ve done it! You’ve created a living batter filled with wild yeast. Now let’s look at how to feed and maintain your sourdough starter so it stays healthy and ready to bake when you are.
If you haven’t made your starter yet, start here: How to Make Sourdough Starter from Scratch.
This post is part of my broader approach to sourdough baking. If you’d like a deeper look at feeding, maintenance, troubleshooting, and recipes, visit the Sourdough Baking Guide.
Table of contents
My Approach to Maintaining a Sourdough Starter
I tend to have a fairly relaxed attitude toward sourdough maintenance. Starters are resilient, and they don’t need to be handled with kid gloves to survive.
There are many ways to feed, maintain, and use a sourdough starter. Below, I’ll show you the method I use at home, which is flexible, forgiving, and well-suited to most home bakers.
As long as your starter is fed periodically and given time to become active before baking, it will usually do just fine.
At the end of this post, you’ll find a step-by-step feeding guide with exact ingredient amounts and instructions. First, though, let’s go through the hows and whys.
Where to Store Your Starter
Room Temperature vs. Refrigerator
Since I don’t bake every day, I keep my starters (I have two) in the refrigerator. For most home bakers, refrigeration makes long-term maintenance much easier.
Storing a starter in the refrigerator significantly slows fermentation and reduces how often it needs to be fed. I recommend feeding your refrigerated starter about once per week when you’re not baking.
If you bake daily, you may prefer to keep your starter at room temperature, where it will need to be fed every day. Otherwise, the refrigerator is your friend.
When to Feed Your Starter
How and when you feed your starter depends mostly on your baking schedule. If you’re a when-the-mood-strikes baker like me, I suggest keeping your starter in the refrigerator and feeding it about once per week when you’re not baking.
When you’re ready to bake, you’ll need a fed and active starter.
If your starter has been fed within the last two to three days and has been refrigerated, you may be able to use it without feeding. The dough may ferment a bit more slowly because of the cooler temperature, but the starter can still perform well.
As you get to know your starter, you’ll develop a sense of when it’s active enough for baking. When in doubt, feed the starter and give it time to become fully active before mixing your dough.
How to Do a Float Test
To test for yeast activity, drop a small dollop of starter into a bowl of water. If it floats, it’s ready for baking.
If you plan to bake and your starter needs feeding:
How far in advance you feed your starter depends on how long your recipe takes.
- If you are making a two-day recipe, take the starter out of the refrigerator early in the morning on the day you want to mix the dough. Feed it right away and it should be ready by early afternoon.
- If you are making a one-day recipe, take the starter out of the refrigerator the night before and feed it. It should be ready to use first thing in the morning.
Understanding Discard
If you continually feed a starter without discarding any, you’ll quickly end up with more starter than you can reasonably use.
Discard is simply the portion of starter that’s removed before feeding.
Discard doesn’t have to be thrown away. Even if it’s not active enough to bake bread, it can be used in many other recipes as a flavor and texture enhancer.
If you bake less frequently, you may find yourself discarding a lot of the starter just to maintain it at 12 oz. If that’s the case, a smaller starter might be a better fit.
Maintaining a Smaller Starter (Low-Waste Option)
Maintaining a smaller starter follows the same principles as maintaining a full-size starter—the only difference is the amount you keep on hand.
Here’s how it works:
- Reduce the overall amount of your starter from 12 oz to 3 oz.
- To maintain your small starter all the information outlined in this post still applies. The only difference is that you discard 2 oz of starter at each feeding.
- The remaining 1 oz of starter is mixed with 1 oz of water and 1 oz of flour.
- When you’re ready to bake take the entire 3 oz of unfed starter and feed with 3 oz of water and 3 oz of flour. You now have 9 oz of starter. Once the starter is active, use 8 oz in your recipe. You will have 1 oz left to continue the feeding cycle.
Common Questions About Feeding and Maintaining a Starter
Honestly, I’ve gone longer than a month without feeding my starter and I haven’t killed it yet. Give it a feeding and see if it wakes up. If it’s alive, keep feeding it until it is reliably doubling in size within 4-5 hours.
If you go more than about 2 weeks between feedings, you might want to give the starter 2-3 feedings before using. A starter that hasn’t been fed for weeks will be out of balance and sluggish.
If your starter was fed a day or two before, it’s possible to use the starter straight from the refrigerator. Give it a float test to make sure it’s active. The dough may take a little longer to ferment since the temperature of the dough will be colder. Use warmer water (about 110-120°F) to mix the dough to speed up the process.
It’s called “hooch” and don’t worry, your starter is still alive. Just stir that water back into the starter before feeding. You might need at least 2 feedings to completely revive and rebalance the starter.
To maintain your starter at 100% hydration it is best and most accurate to weigh your ingredients. If you’re just a little bit off every time you feed, eventually, your starter could be thrown out of balance.
No problem, use the amount of starter called for in the recipe. Then weigh out 4 oz of the remaining starter for feeding and discard the rest.
Yes, If you continually feed the starter without discarding, you’ll end up drowning in starter.
Yes, even if the discard is not active enough for baking bread, you can add it to many other recipes as a flavor and texture enhancer.
Unless you’re going away for an extended time, your starter should be just fine for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. If you’ll be gone really long-term, put the starter into the freezer or dry it. Frozen or dried starter will need several feedings to rejuvenate.
Feeding Your Sourdough Starter: A Quick Reference
Below is a simple reference guide showing how I feed my starter each time.
If this guide was helpful, a 5-star review is always appreciated.
How to Feed Sourdough Starter
Video
Ingredients
- 4 oz unfed sourdough starter (see note)
- 4 oz all purpose flour
- 4 oz water (room temperature)
Instructions
- Weigh 4 oz unfed sourdough starter into a clean container. Discard the extra starter (see note)
- Add 4 oz all purpose flour and 4 oz water and mix until combined. Set aside at room temperature.
- The starter is ready to use when it has doubled in volume and a small spoonful floats when dropped into a bowl of water. This generally takes 4-5 hours but the time can vary based on dough temperature and room temperature.
- If you do not plan to bake with the starter on the day it is fed, refrigerate 3-4 hours after feeding.
- Feed refrigerated starter weekly. If you go longer than a week without feeding, you may want to give the starter two feedings before using.
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Hello Eileen,
Awesome website!!!
Would it be possible to take the leftover active 4oz (after removing the 8oz for baking), and put that 4oz directly into the fridge. A week later take out that 4oz from the fridge building it back up to 12oz, bake, and repeat. At a one week baking schedule there would be no need to discard anything.
In your feeding instructions next to the 4oz measurements it is 112g for starter and flour, however the water reads 120ml. Should this not be also 112g? 112g will also read 112ml on the scale.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Danny
I understand what you’re asking. Basically, you want to keep a smaller starter so you have less discard. It would possibly work. If you’re looking to have less discard you might want to try keeping a small starter. Using the small starter method there is only 2 oz of discard each time you’re ready to bake. Sometimes, if it’s only been a few days since my last bake, I won’t discard the 2 oz and will just go ahead with the 3 oz feeding. But I have found that giving the starter 2 feedings before making the dough results in a more active dough. By weight the water would be 112g, by cup measure 120ml.
I’m a novice. This is great info. Question : can I claim my sour dough starter as a dependent on my taxes?
Lol
Ended up throwing mine out. It never grew, never got yeasty. Very disappointed. I followed the directions that I thought were well written. The temp in my house is about 74 so I wondered if that was the problem. So disappointed.
I need some help. I’m new to sourdough baking. I was given some starter to refrigerate. Was told to feed once a week. If I use equal parts of starter, flour, water, and have to discard what’s left, how will I ever have enough to bake a loaf of bread?
You can build up your starter over a few days. Read through this post about maintaining a small starter to see how it’s done. Let me know if you have any other questions.
@Eileen Gray, I was told if it’s is the refrigerator, I feed it once a week. Do I discard some before I feed it?
Yes, you always need to discard before feeding. Otherwise the starter would grow exponentially and you’d end up drowning in starter.
Hi! I’ve got a bit of a niche question. I fed my starter this morning, left it for a few hours to ripen it, and have now made up my dough for the bread I will bake tomorrow. My question is, for the starter I’ve got left in my jar, should I be feeding that right away after removing the portion I need for the dough? Or should I be leaving it alone until it’s about 12 hours after the last feeding time as not to over-feed it? For context I now want to stick it in the fridge so I can revert to weekly feeding times. Thanks so much in advance! X
I always feed my starter right after removing the portion to mix the dough. I then leave it out for a couple of hours to give the yeast time to get going. Then it goes in the fridge until next time I plan to bake. If I plan to bake within a day I leave it out.