We recommend whenever you feed your starter, you feed it half its weight in flour and water. Start by putting an empty jar on your scale and hitting tare. Then put your jar of starter on the scale (this way you can get the weight of just your starter). Once you have the weight of your starter, divide that number by two. That is how much of each water and flour to feed your starter.
Here is an example of how to feed a starter from start to finish:
1.) Weigh an empty jar similar to the jar you keep your starter in. The weight reads 100g. Hit tare. This brings the weight back to 0g. Doing this step ensures you don't include the weight of the jar when you weigh your starter.
2.) Put the jar of starter on the scale. The scale reads 400g. Now you know you have 400g of starter.
3.) Divide the weight of the starter by two. 400/2= 200g.
4.) Feed starter 200g of water and 200g of flour. Stir it all up and let it eat
Take your starter out of the refrigerator the day before you want to bake and feed it. Leave the starter on the counter overnight. In the morning your starter should be active and ready to bake with. Once you mix your starter into your bread dough, feed the remaining amount of the starter and put it back in the refrigerator.
Your starter should be fed once a week or each time before baking bread. If you miss a feeding by a day or two, it is not going to be critical. After three or four days, it may start to lose strength. There could be some darker-colored crust forming. Remove the discolored part and find a small portion of the starter that looks like the original. Use that to feed and reactivate it. A clean container should be used for this restart. From this condition, it should be fed for a few days before baking with it.
If the starter is losing strength, it can be refreshed by leaving it on the counter and feeding it a few times at 12-hour intervals. It should regain its strength.
Long-term storage
Thicken the starter so it is like a stiff, dry bread dough. Cover it with flour and put it in the refrigerator. It can survive like this for several weeks.
To revive it, shake off the excess flour and reach into the center of the starter to get a spoonful of what looks like an active starter. Proceed with feeding it and building it up as before.
To reduce the volume of starter you need to feed and maintain, you can discard some of your starter. See our recipes on www.sunriseflourmill.com for using sourdough discard, or add the discard to regular baked goods. It's a good alternative to throwing the excess away.
