Maintaining Sour Dough Starter

Your sour dough starter is now active and has bubbles throughout. Right? Good.

We will be baking a loaf of bread but first I want to cover  how you can maintain your starter.

Daily

When you maintain it daily, you will have to feed the starter each day.
You will discard all but 1/2 C of the starter and then add:

1 C warm water
1 C flour

Mix well, cover loosely and all to set at 70-80 degrees temp.

If you plan to use the starter the next day, feed it twice with at least 6 hours between feedings.

I admit that daily feedings for a long period of time can become a chore, but I do suggest that you keep it daily until you have baked a few loaves of bread and become familiar with your starter.

Weekly

Weekly feedings can be great for a busier schedule. You will discard all but 1/2 C starter and add:

1 C warm water
1 C flour

Mix well and allow to sit on counter for 2 hours. After this 2 hours place the starter in your fridge for a week.
After a week, remove starter and feed again in same manner.
When you want to bake bread you must start a couple of days  early by removing starter, feed it and allow it to set out for 24 hours. The next day feed it twice and keep it out on counter. The NEXT day you will feed it and after 6 hours it will be ready for use.
All of the work those 3 days increased the activity of your starter.

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Now, we will bake a loaf of bread Saturday. Let's keep the starter on daily feedings and it will be ready to go then!