I have recently started growing my own first ever sourdough starter (not having baked a bread in my life before, hehehe). I started three at the same time, all with whole wheat bread flour: one with water, one with pineapple juice, and one with a liquid instant sourdough I got from Germany. In the end, the third one “won” (I keep the house pretty cold, and I think I simply gave up too quickly on #1 and #2). I now have two starters which are doing well: I have split #3 into #3a (whole wheat bread) and #3b (white flour, by feeding #3 with increasing amounts of white flour).

My favorite, #3b is now about a week old now. After 3 days of 2:1:1 (100 grams starter, 50 grams water, 50 grams flour), I started feeding is 1:1:1. That works well, and after about 8-12 hours it doubles. The starter stays inflated for hours! (is that normal?).

I read that I should now start feeding the starter a 1:2:2 ratio (so for example, 50 grams starter, 100 grams water, and 100 grams flour). It’s supposed to be healthy enough to bake when it’s able to double itself within 8 hours after a 1:2:2 feeding, right? And if it doesn’t, I should only feed it once per day until it can double itself within 8 hours at 1:2:2 feedings (which probably takes about a week)?

Sadly, now my starter only rises a little bit (not even by 1/2) after 12 hours. In fact, after 24 hours it still didn't rise more than that (the surface just had a lot of bubbles on it, and it seemed much more like batter than when I feed it 1:1:1), and I fed it again (at 1:2:2) because I was afraid I was killing it. So, what should I now do? Should I go back to 1:1:1 and feed it twice a day? (as noted before, with that feeding, it can double itself after about 8-12 hours at about 65 Fahrenheit, and stays inflated for quite a few hours — so much so that I don’t quite know when it is “fresh” to start baking with).

FYI: Although I wasn’t sure if it would rise, I baked my first ever sourdough no-knead loaf with this starter yesterday and it was awesome! After 18 hours it hadn't doubled in size but I went ahead anyway, and the final bread came out really nice (and very soury)