Feeding your sourdough starter is easy. How often you feed your sourdough starter mainly depends on when you plan on using it to bake. Some other factors can also contribute to the frequency of the feeding schedule, like the temperature and the ratio of flour to water you are using in your starter.
If you are planning on baking very soon then the starter will need to be fed and brought up to room temperature before you use it. If you are not planning on baking for a while, going on vacation, or planning to transport your starter, then there are a few different techniques.
Feeding your starter when you store it long term.
What do I mean by “storing it for the long term”? If you are not planning on baking bread in the next day or so I consider that long-term. The best way to do this safely is to keep your sourdough starter in your fridge.
The coldness in the fridge slows down the bacteria in the starter so they don’t process the sugar in the flour as fast. Normally at room temperature, the yeast and bacteria would eat through the sugars in about a day. When you keep it in the fridge it can last for weeks.
I left the starter in the fridge for about six weeks without looking at it and used it after two feedings. It wasn’t happy but it worked out fine! typically if I am leaving it for a few weeks without use I will feed my sourdough starter once a week.
For this way of storing it I will just remove the starter and throw half of it out when it is time to feed it. I add equal parts flour and water (50g/50g) and stir well. Then place it back in the fridge with it’s lid on.
That’s all you have to do to keep your sourdough starter happy and healthy for long term storage. Feed it once a week, and if you forget, no big deal!
Feed your starter when you are going to bake some bread.
In order to use your starter at the perfect time and get the best results for baking, you want the starter to have doubled in size after you feed it while at room temperature.
That’s the goal here, and that’s important because there are a lot of guides out there telling you specific times and that can get confusing.
Now that I said times can be confusing, I will give you some rough times! I find that feeding a sourdough starter approximately 6 hours before you are going to use it is a really good time to aim for.
Remember, you want to use the starter when it has doubled in size after you fed it. Sometimes, that can happen after 3 hours! It does depend. You can get technical with temperature and humidity control but that is for the real bread nerds.
Feed your starter at room temperature, even if you aren’t going to bake.
I would typically feed the starter every 12 hours if I was keeping it at room temperature all the time. If you find the starter is starting to smell like apple cider it probably means it is running out of food, not fed frequently enough, or too warm.
How to feed a sourdough starter.