For the past month I've been working on a new sourdough starter and it is doing well.  I used the rye flour and pineapple juice method described in the handbook.  I've been mixing 1/4 cup starter, 1/4 cut of flour and 2 T of water each day for the past week or so.  I am going to make the San Francisco stlye sourdough in the lessons section.  It requires 300 g of starter and I don;t have that much.

I read in the starter maintenance section of the handbook to use 1/4 c starter, 1/2 c flour and 4 T water.  I wanted to make sure I had some left over to keep growing so today I mixed 1/2 c starter (everything I had) 1 c flour and 8 T of water.

I changed the ratio from 1/4 c starter:1/4 flour:2 T which I used to grow the starter.  Now I have 1/2c starter:1 c flour: 8 T water.

I am trying to figure out:

What ratios do I use when I want to produce larger quantities of starter to bake with?

How does % hydration work?  I thought 100 g flour with 50 g water = 50% hydration.  I am not sure how it works with a starter.

How can I take a wet starter and make a starter with 66% hydration?

I am going back to using a scale to bake and getting away from cups and T for a bit more accuracy.

Thanks,

John