Hi,
Until now, I’ve been keeping my starter in the fridge and feeding it once every week or two at a 1:1:1 ratio. After feeding, I usually leave it on the counter for a while before putting it back in the fridge.
Now I’m thinking about keeping it at room temperature because I want to bake more often. I was wondering if it’s possible to feed it only once a day with an appropriate ratio. Feeding every 12 hours would be difficult for me.
I tried using 7 g of old starter, 50 g of flour (all-purpose or bread flour), and 35 g of water. I read that lower-hydration starters develop more slowly, but even with this ratio, my starter was fully ripe after 12 hours.
Do you have any recommendations regarding feeding ratios or schedules? Or maybe you have your own preferred low-maintenance method for feeding a starter?
Thank you in advance!
The only thing I can recommend is not using the fridge. As an example - bake as normal - keep some aside - let it ferment till it's used again. It is a simple method that can be used. Try it over time and see what happens. Enjoy!
You can add salt. Try 1% of the flour weight. This will slow down the fermentation; maybe that will be enough.
TomP
I've had my starter for at least 40 years. I do use it for bread sometimes weekly or at least every other week. It seems to be quite happy living in the fridge and being fed on a fairly random basis . Each time I use it I always put back a scoop or so of KA bread flour and an equal amount of water , I've never measured either which is the way my Irish grandmother taught my late first wife, ,for probably close to 100% hydration and have never had any problem.
The experts in starter management say the best method for starter mgt is to keep it at room temperature and feed twice a day or at least once a day. They advocate using a small amount of starter and then build your levain as needed.
I have always kept my 66% stiff starter in the refrigerator and tried to refresh it once a week, I then make my levain and let it sit overnight or 4-5 hours at 74F before using in the main dough. I have done a 2 step build of the levain when I let my mother starter go too long between refreshments and that works very well.
If the starter is not refreshed often enough it can become acidic resulting in poor fermentation and gluten development.
It’s up to you of course which method you want to use. The FB group Sourdough Geeks has some excellent posts saved in their resources about starter maintenance that you maybe interested in.
I've refrigerated my 100% starter for a couple of decades and pull it out periodically to feed and bake. Two or 3 feed cycles puts it back into shape and the discard generally become sourdough waffles. There have been times when the starter has been refrigerated for months, maybe even a year, unattended. It always revives fine. And it also survives just fine for weeks on the kitchen counter and revives even faster. I'm not interested in pampering a starter with twice daily, or daily, feeds. That seems mostly for bakeries where the bakes are daily and they always need a generous supply of highly active starter. For me, refrigerated or counter storage, as well as feeding fequency, is dictated on how often I intend to bake bread.