Transfering starter

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Victoria201419 on 9 Apr 2022 at 09:08

Hi

 

I am new to making a sour dough starter and I was following https://www.farmhouseonboone.com/no-knead-sourdough-bread, I use a cup of flour and 1 cup water. It seems to be doing ok I am on day 5 and tomorrow I'm suppose to feed twice a day and I am afraid the container is not big enough, can I move to another container safely? Thanks

You can definitely move your starter to a different container. It won’t harm the starter at all.

Thank you, If I want to cut back the amount I have is that harmful? I have more then I think I may want especially once I go to twice a day feedings, I wish I started smaller?

I usually keep around 70g of starter, and many people keep less. As long as you keep the ratios the same, the starter will be fine.

Just make sure that you have enough that you can easily judge whether the starter is doubling/tripling/quadrupling. 

If you find it inconvenient to feed the starter in the container, you can put the amount you need in a bowl, feed it, and transfer it back to your now-empty container. This is usually what I do.

You definitely want to discard some every time you feed so that the amount of starter stays fixed. For instance, if you want to have 150g and you are using a 1-1-1 ratio, you should only carry over 50g of starter each time you feed. The other (roughly) 100g can be moved into another bowl and used in recipes that call for sourdough discard.

It is fine to cut back even though you are early in the process. 

Victoria, you can transfer of course, but that is not necessary even if you feed it twice a day.

According to the recipe that you are using, you always discard half before feeding, so the total amount stays the same, about a cup of starter which, when doubling, will rise to the level of 1.5-2 cups in volume and then recede.

If you switch to feeding it 1/2cup of flour and water each, then discard 3/4of the previous starter the first time you feed it.