Forum newbie with a question...

If you have confidence in your starter you can use it right from the fridge.  I can and do this. Tonight I'll be mixing up dough for 4 spelt loaves and I'll be using 240g of spelt starter directly from the fridge.

You need to fined something that works for you though. For my wheat loaves for tomorrow (32 of them) I took the starter out of the fridge half an hour ago, added flour + water and it's currently sitting at room temperature - it'll be ready by 8pm when I'll be mixing/kneading the dough. (for baking in the morning) That's a process that works for me.

-Gordon

I think maybe we need to clarify some terms, just to make sure we're answering the right questions. So, here's my understanding (which may be different from others):

• Starter - the mother culture that you keep (usually in the fridge, unless you bake every day or so)
• Levain - the active, fed culture built from the mother culture, flour and water. This should be used at its peak, but can be popped into the fridge once it has peaked if you're not ready to make the dough
• Autolyse - mix the water and flour and let it sit. Sometimes this stage includes the levain but that's not technically an autolyse then, more of a rest. The salt and other add-ins are usually added after this stage, along with the levain if that hasn't been mixed in at the beginning
• Bulk ferment - once everything has been mixed into the dough, then it is left to ferment (also called first rise). This stage varies widely as to time, depending on things like how much levain was in the dough, the temperature of your room, the blend of flours, the hydration level of the dough, etc. Once the dough has actively started to rise, you can put the dough in the fridge at this stage. This is called retarding the bulk ferment. I often do this; most of my doughs spend at least the night in the fridge before I shape the loaves
• Proof (or final proof or final rise) - this is the period after you have shaped the loaves, where you let the dough rise until it is 'ready' to bake ('ready' depends on a few things, as I'm sure you're aware). This stage can also be retarded (i.e. the shaped loaves can be left to rise in the fridge), either immediately or after the dough has shown some signs of rising.

So, if all that is the same as your understanding of things, are you actually talking about putting your levain in the fridge or doing a bulk ferment in the fridge? The latter is quite common; the former is usually done only if you have a levain that has peaked but you're not yet ready to make the dough.

Hope this helps!