How do I feed my sourdough starter? | The Perfect Loaf (2024)

Feeding, also called refreshing, your sourdough starter ultimately becomes a series of personal choices. You have to adjust your starter feeding routine to match your baking frequency, the flour you plan to have on hand, the temperatures currently in your kitchen (which fluctuate naturally through the seasons), and also to time your sourdough starter ripening with your daily schedule. In this post, I plan to visit the question I get asked extremely often: how do I feed my sourdough starter?

This post will discuss what I’m feeding my sourdough starter (and will be updated should changes arise) and the schedule it follows. Since I often bake sourdough bread (just about every day!), keeping my starter in the strongest possible condition is beneficial. This means frequent feedings and keeping it at a warm temperature.

If you bake less often or want less commitment, there’s a place for that, too. Please have a look at my weekend bread-making schedule for a low-maintenance way to keep your starter with the possibility of still baking bread on the weekends.

For a quick rundown, check out my YouTube video of my feeding process:

First, Create a Sourdough Starter

If you don’t already have a sourdough starter, head to my easy sourdough starter creation guide to learn to make your own sourdough starter in around seven days. It’s an easy process of mixing flour and water, discarding, and letting the mixture rest until stable and predictable fermentation happens each day.

How do I feed my sourdough starter? | The Perfect Loaf (1)

What is Feeding a Sourdough Starter?

A sourdough starter needs a regular feeding of fresh flour and water to provide it with “food” for its metabolic activities. The wild yeast and bacteria in a sourdough culture use the flour to continue to function, reproducing and eventually creating the byproducts of fermentation we’re after when baking bread: for the dough to rise (through carbon dioxide production) and for the flavor to be created (organic acids and other compounds).

Now that we know what it is let’s look at how I feed my sourdough starter.

How Do I Feed My Sourdough Starter?

I use baker’s percentages to communicate how I feed my starter in the same way I use them to convey bread formulas. All components of my sourdough starter are relative to the flour weight, which is always at 100%. This allows me to scale up or down my starter as needed—to, say, cover a large levain build for a big bake—while still maintaining the same ratio of ingredients.

Currently, I feed my sourdough starter the following ratio of carryover to flour to water:

WeightIngredientBaker’s Percentage
20gRipe sourdough starter carryover20%
100gFlour (70g all-purpose flour, 30g whole rye flour)100%
100gWater100%

I maintain around 220g of starter each day, translating to 20g carryover ripe sourdough starter, 70g all-purpose flour, 30g whole rye flour, and 100g water. I keep my starter in a large 3/4 Liter Weck jar and the jar in my small dough proofer daily.

If kept around 76°F (24°C), this sourdough starter should ripen about every 12 hours.

To give it a feeding, I discard the ripe sourdough starter in the jar down to 20g, add 70g fresh all-purpose flour, 30g whole rye flour, and 100g water. Then, I give it a thorough mix until everything is hom*ogenous. Finally, cover the jar (these are my favorite jars to hold my sourdough starter) with its glass lid—it’s not sealed shut, it just prevents air from getting inside—and leave it for 12 hours.

Adjusting Sourdough Starter Feedings Through the Seasons

Depending on the temperature in my kitchen, I might slightly adjust the amount of ripe sourdough starter I carry over during each feeding. For example, in the extreme heat of the summer, I might drop the amount of carryover starter down to 5 grams to ensure my starter doesn’t ripen too quickly (i.e., discard more starter and use it somewhere else!). More ripe sourdough carryover left in the jar means a faster ripening time. On the other hand, less left in the jar slows ripening.

More ripe sourdough carryover left in the jar means a faster ripening time. On the other hand, less left in the jar slows ripening.

Conversely, in the coldest parts of the winter, I might bump the ripe sourdough starter carryover to 25 grams, even with my dough proofer holding my starter jar and warming to 76°F (24°C).

Can I Save Sourdough Starter Discard?

With each sourdough starter feeding, you’ll be discarding some to avoid it from becoming overly acidic. Most will compost or trash this discard, but you can save it and use it in other recipes! When discarding, I’ll scoop out my ripe sourdough and add it to my sourdough starter discard cache, which is kept in the refrigerator.

Then, I can use this discard later in any delicious sourdough starter discard recipe.

My Sourdough Starter Feeding Schedule

Now that you know what I feed my sourdough starter daily let’s look at its schedule.

With the above flour, water, and carryover ratios, I need to feed my sourdough starter twice a day if kept at a warm temperature. I like to feed once in the morning at around 9:00 a.m. and once at night at around 9:00 p.m. This isn’t a super strict schedule, sometimes I feed a little earlier and sometimes a little later, but generally, I like to keep to those times.

With this schedule, it means I can make the day’s levain early at 9:00 a.m., and in the case of something like my , the levain will ripen and be ready for mixing around 2:00 p.m. In other cases, where I have an overnight levain, I’ll make the overnight preferment at night around 9:00 p.m., and it’s ready for mixing first thing in the morning.

The important thing is always to make a levain or mix a dough when your starter is ripe. This means making the levain with the ripe starter before feeding it.

In my case, I have two opportunities throughout the day to make a levain or mix a dough, at 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.

Recommended reading: Read on for more detail on my sourdough starter maintenance routine, including the signs I look for when my starter is ready for a feeding.

What’s Next?

How do I feed my sourdough starter? Well, that’s it! I’ll keep this post updated with any changes to my feeding regimen, but if you’re interested in reading more about starters, look at my sourdough starter collection, where I have a collection of maintenance routines, discard recipes, guides, and more.

If you’re having issues with your sourdough starter, check out my roundup of the most commonly asked starter questions I’ve compiled over the last decade: 21 common sourdough starter problems with solutions.

If you want to get baking straight away with your starter, check out these recipes to get a loaf of sourdough bread on your table in no time.

Focaccia Pugliese (Focaccia with Potato)

Jalapeño-Cheddar Sourdough Bread

Easy No-Knead Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Starter FAQs

I have an in-depth sourdough starter FAQ with many questions and answers, but below are a few related to how I feed my sourdough starter.

How long after feeding my starter can I use it?

How do I feed my sourdough starter? | The Perfect Loaf (8)

It depends on how you’ve fed it! If you feed it by carrying over a large percentage of ripe sourdough starter, it will be ready earlier. On the other hand, less carryover means it will take longer to ripen, assuming it’s kept at the same temperature.

Why do you use rye flour in your sourdough starter?

I like using whole-grain rye flour to increase fermentation activity for a lively and strong starter. It’s not mandatory, but a preference of mine: it results in a starter with the performance and flavor characteristics I’m after. If you’re making a levain when baking, this will likely have a larger impact on a single bake (both in terms of flavor and fermentation performance).

Do I have to feed my sourdough starter twice a day?

No. You can scale back to once a day or even scale up to three times a day, whatever works for you and your schedule. I like to feed it at least once a day to keep it strong and ready for baking. If you aren’t baking for a while, you could store your starter.

Do I have to discard my sourdough starter?

It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that’s been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period. This discard can be used to make sourdough waffles, pancakes, cakes, or many other things!

How do I feed my sourdough starter? | The Perfect Loaf (2024)

FAQs

What is the correct way to feed sourdough starter? ›

Remove and discard half of your sourdough starter from the jar. Feed what's left in the jar with equal parts flour and water by weight (1:1:1 feeding ratio). You need a digital kitchen scale for this. Because we all work with different quantities of starters, this 1:1:1 feeding ratio is best understood by example.

How much of my starter should I use for a sourdough loaf? ›

As with any sourdough recipe, before you start baking bread, you want to make sure that your sourdough starter is as strong as possible. My basic sourdough recipe uses just 50g of starter for 500g of flour (so just 10% of starter).

What is the best ratio to feed sourdough starter? ›

Typical feeding ratios are 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 (old sourdough: fresh flour: water). However, even extreme ratios like 1:50:50 would still work. In that case, the freshly fed sourdough would just require more or much more time to grow and reach its peak, as judged by the maximum volume increase in the jar (at least doubled).

Do you have to discard sourdough starter every time you feed it? ›

With each sourdough starter feeding, you'll be discarding some to avoid it from becoming overly acidic. Most will compost or trash this discard, but you can save it and use it in other recipes!

What should sourdough starter look like after feeding? ›

There is a short window of time when your starter is as its peak, which is when it's at its most bubbly and active and has grown in volume the most; this is a glorious thing to see. It should be a lovely glutinous consistency, with a thickness like a thick mini pancake batter, and full of bubbles as you stir it.

Should you feed sourdough starter at its peak? ›

With the Peak-to-Peak method, you ignore the clock, watch your starter's activity, then discard and feed your sourdough starter as it is peaking.

Can you overfeed a sourdough starter? ›

Yes, you can overfeed your sourdough starter. Audrey explains: “Every time you add more flour and water, you are depleting the existing population of natural bacteria and yeast.” If you keep adding more and more, eventually you'll dilute the starter so much that you'll just have flour and water.

Can you add too much starter to sourdough bread? ›

If you have too much starter compared to the additional flour and water you're adding, your hungry starter consumes all the nutrients and then it's not as bubbly.

How to make sourdough more sour? ›

For more tang: Incorporate some rye flour and/or whole wheat flour early in the bread-making process, such as when feeding the mother culture and the preferment. Rye flour in particular will help your culture produce some acetic acid.

What is the best flour for sourdough starter? ›

The best flour blend for creating a new sourdough starter is 50% whole-meal flour (whole wheat or whole rye) and 50% bread flour or all-purpose flour. I recommend a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour. Why do you need to use these two types of flour?

What happens if you forgot to discard starter before feeding? ›

Not discarding will also help build up that sour flavor. So if you want your bread to be a little more sour, try not discarding a feed or two. before you pulled a bake.

Why is my sourdough starter bubbling but not rising? ›

If your starter gets completely covered on top with bubbles but does not rise, it is healthy but may just be a wet mix. Try reducing the water in your next feeding and see if you have different results. Also, the type of flour you are using can impede the rise of your starter.

How long can sourdough starter sit out without feeding? ›

I wouldn't go more than 24 hours without feeding a very young sourdough starter (it may survive longer than this unfed however you will leave it open to the risk of mold). Mature sourdough starter aged more than 6 months old should be able to survive unfed on the counter for around 3-4 days without any risk of mold.

How many times a day should I feed my sourdough starter? ›

Discard a portion of the starter and feed it with fresh flour and water every 24 hours. Twice-Daily Feeding: In warmer environments or if you prefer a faster fermentation process, you can feed your starter twice a day, approximately every 12 hours. This helps maintain a more active and vigorous starter.

What happens if I forgot to discard the starter before feeding? ›

If you don't get rid of the excess, eventually you'll have more starter than your feedings can sustain. After a few days, your daily 1/4 cup flour and water won't be enough to sustain your entire jar of starter, and your starter will be slow and sluggish, not much better than discard itself.

Do you feed sourdough starter with all purpose flour or bread flour? ›

But all purpose, bread flour, whole wheat flour or rye flour are all suitable for feeding a regular sourdough starter successfully. Many people like to feed their sourdough starter a cheaper flour, particularly when in the establishment phase and going through quite a bit of it.

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