How to Feed Sourdough Starter

The key to making amazing sourdough bread is knowing how to feed sourdough starter so it is healthy and ready to bake whenever you get the itch. Maintaining the starter only takes a few minutes and just two ingredients.

Once you have an active sourdough starter, whether you’ve grown it yourself (see our easy Sourdough Starter Recipe), purchased a starter, or received one as a gift, you’ll need to feed it to maintain and keep it alive. You’ll see how this quick process varies slightly depending on how often you bake sourdough bread or other goodies. Grab your starter and let’s get started!

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What does it mean to feed sourdough starter?

Your established starter is a living ecosystem of wild yeast, and like any living thing, it gets hungry. You can maintain it easily by mixing in more flour and water, a process called “feeding.” Once it’s fed, the wild yeast eat the sugars in the flour releasing carbon dioxide that causes the starter to grow. Once the yeast has eaten the sugars, the starter begins to deflate, which means it’s hungry, so it’s time to feed again.

How Often to Feed Sourdough Starter

When maintaining a starter, first determine where to store it by deciding how often you want to use the starter:

• Frequent baker (every day or every couple of days)—you’ll want to keep the sourdough starter at room temperature and feed it at the same time every day. 
• Less frequent, casual baker (once a week or less)— you can keep your starter in the fridge and feed it once each week.

I cover both scenarios in this post because I think to truly enjoy sourdough baking, it’s important to fit your sourdough starter maintenance routine into YOUR lifestyle.

How Much to Feed My Sourdough Starter

In this recipe, the feeding quantities will be enough to make 2 loaves of bread. This makes the amount of starter manageable in my favorite Weck Jar (more on this jar below). It also matches my baking needs, as I can bake bread without running out of starter.

You can scale your starter up or down depending on how much starter you want to maintain, just feed it a 1:1:1 ratio by weight using a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients. You may see this referred to as 100% hydration in some recipes.

A Note on Measuring: In sourdough baking, your best friend is a kitchen scale to measure by weight, and in my opinion, it’s non-negotiable. It is the most exact way of measuring. Most sourdough recipes are written in weight measurements because it’s the most accurate.

Using volume measurements (cups) isn’t as precise. If you do use cups to measure, be sure to measure your flour correctly.

Tools for Feeding a Sourdough Starter

Maintaining sourdough starter can go on as long as you want–indefinitely if you keep it up, so it’s worth the investment in these tools. I’ve listed my favorites here:

• Clear Jar – 1 Qt Mason jar or 3/4 Qt Weck Jar with loose fitting lid – Weck jars are my favorite because they weigh exactly 400g (it’s much easier to measure by weight when the math is simple), the lid is loose fitting to avoid pressure building up inside, and the wide mouth makes for easy stirring.
• Digital kitchen scale – most sourdough recipes use weight measurements. It also saves on dishes and cleanup since you won’t have to use measuring cups! It doesn’t have to be fancy, as long as it has grams, any scale will work
• Stiff silicone spatula – The starter is so sticky, so silicone is easiest to clean. Wipe your spatula and discard any extra starter in the trash to avoid it building up in your plumbing.

Ingredients

You only need two ingredients to feed a sourdough starter. Be sure to see our tips on measuring the ingredients above. You can scale the ingredients up or down for your needs, but be sure to keep the ratio 1:1:1.

• Sourdough Starter – Stir down your active starter if using a cup to measure
• Water – filtered, non-chlorinated, room temperature or lukewarm water. Bottled spring water can work too. For cooler homes, give the starter a boost by using lukewarm water that is 85 degrees or less (optional). Cold water can slow the yeasts’ growth.
• Flour – I use organic, unbleached all-purpose flour because it’s what most people have stocked and it’s affordable. You can swap 1/4 to half of the flour with whole wheat flour or rye flour to help the yeast strengthen. Regardless of what flour you use to feed a starter, you can use any type of flour to bake.

How to Feed a Sourdough Starter

The process for feeding sourdough starter is so simple and takes only a few minutes. For refrigerated starters, feed once a week and start with step 1, but for room temperature starters, feed once a day and start at step 2 (or 3).

• Bring to Room Temperature – put the cold starter on the counter for a few hours or overnight to come to room temperature.
• Feed the Starter– Stir room temperature starter, then discard all but 100g (1/2 cup) of starter. Use a kitchen scale to measure 100g (1/2 cup) of water and 100g (1 scant cup) of flour. Stir into the starter until completely mixed.
• Clean and Cover – use a silicone spatula to scrape down the sides of the jar and cover loosely with a lid or plastic wrap. Use a rubber band or dry-erase marker to mark the height of the starter and the date, so you can track its growth. Store the jar on the counter or fridge (if feeding for refrigeration, let it sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours to jump-start the process then refrigerate).

Do I have to discard sourdough starter every time I feed?

Technically no. Once it’s established, you can just feed it, but it will become very acidic over time since you aren’t discarding some of the waste/acid left over by fermentation, and the sheer volume would be hard to manage. You don’t have to waste the discard though.

Sourdough discard is just an unfed starter. To use it, try baking a sourdough discard recipe (like Sourdough Discard Crackers or Sourdough Pancakes), sharing it with a friend (put it in a new jar, and feed it to make a second starter), frying it like a savory pancake, or refrigerating it in a separate jar until ready to bake.

Troubleshooting: Sourdough Starter Maintenance Tips

Maintaining a healthy starter sometimes depends on a variety of conditions: the humidity in your area, the temperature in your home, the type of flour used, the age of the starter, etc. Here are a few tips for getting the healthiest starter:

• My sourdough starter is not doubling – continue to feed each day at the same time to help the starter gain strength. If the room temperature is below 70-75 degrees, consider moving the starter to a warmer spot. Try switching to bottled water if using tap water. Overall—patience is so important! Your yeast will grow if it’s in the right environment.
• There’s a gray liquid on top of my starter -If you notice a dark liquid on the top (like in the picture below), don’t worry—that’s called hooch, the byproduct of fermentation. It means your starter is hungry. Pour it off or stir it in, discard half and feed.
• My starter smells like rubbing alcohol – if there aren’t any colored streaks in the starter, this means it’s hungry. Discard and feed.
• I forgot to feed/discard/stir my starter – don’t worry! Wild yeast is forgiving. Continue to discard and feed, and your starter should recover.
• There are pink streaks in my starter – If you notice pink, green, or orange streaks, or green fuzz, bad bacteria has contaminated your starter. Throw it away, thoroughly wash your jar, and begin again.

How to Dry Sourdough Starter

If you need to take a break from baking for several weeks or months, you can dry your starter and store in the pantry. This is also a good idea to keep as a backup starter. Simply spread a small bit of starter thinly on a Silpat mat or parchment paper. Leave at room temperature until dry and flaky. Store in a dry jar.

How to Use Sourdough Starter to Bake Bread

Healthy starters should grow and double in size in about 4-6 hours. A recipe will call for “active sourdough starter”, meaning the starter is bubbly, has more than doubled and has been fed in the past 12 hours.

• Room temperature starter: watch for your starter to reach its peak. Remove the amount of starter needed for the recipe, and feed the remaining starter. 
• Refrigerated starter: remove the jar of starter the night before baking to bring it to room temperature. Discard and feed. Once the starter has reached its peak, remove the amount of starter needed for the recipe. Feed the remaining starter, label it with the date, let it sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours to jump-start the process and return the jar to the refrigerator.

Let us know how your starter is doing! Share your sourdough experience in the comments, and feel free to ask any questions you may have. 

Once you learn how to feed sourdough starter, it’s simple to maintain your starter around your baking schedule. Now that you have a thriving starter, it’s time to bake! Start with our beginner-friendly Sourdough Bread Recipe. 

More Bread Baking Recipes

If you’re excited about making homemade bread, then you should try these delicious bread-baking recipes. P.S. Before long, we’ll have a variety of sourdough recipes to share. Let me know if you have any sourdough recipe requests.

• English Muffins
• Irish Soda Bread
• Brioche Bread
• Homemade Biscuits
• Lemon Blueberry Bread
• No-Knead Bread