Sourdough Starter Maintenance: The Key to Perfect Homemade Bread
A great sourdough starter is the foundation of beautiful, flavourful bread. But maintaining a healthy starter can feel intimidating for beginners. The truth is, sourdough starter maintenance isn’t about age or special tricks — it’s about consistency, care, and understanding the life inside your jar.
Please Note:
If you haven't yet activated your starter flakes please do so here: Activate Your Wheat Starter Flakes here.
The following maintenance instructions are for wheat-based starters, if you are looking for gluten-free starter maintenance please go here.
Feeding Your Starter
Once active a sourdough starter is alive — it's a colony of wild yeast and bacteria that eat flour and water. Feeding gives them fresh food so they stay strong and active.
After a feed, your starter goes through a predictable cycle (at around 26-28°C):
- It eats and grows for 2-3 hours
- It hits its peak — roughly growing by 30-50% in size, domed on top, full of bubbles, and at its most active
- It stays strong for another 1-2 hours
- Then it starts to deflate and weaken as the food runs out
The goal is to use your starter while it's strong — at peak or just after. Bakers control when that peak happens using two levers: ratio and frequency. Together, they work like a timing system that lets you line up your starter's peak with when you want to bake.
What a ratio means
A ratio tells you how much starter, flour, and water to mix at each feed. It's always written in the same order:
starter : flour : water
So a ratio of 1:4:4 means:
- 1 part starter
- 4 parts flour
- 4 parts water
That could be:
- 5 g : 20 g : 20 g
- 10 g : 40 g : 40 g
- 25 g : 100 g : 100 g
👉 The numbers scale, but the balance stays the same.
What frequency means
Frequency is how often you feed your starter. It controls how healthy, active, and predictable it is.
For example:
- Every 12 hours → high frequency
- Every 24 hours → moderate frequency
- Once a week (in the fridge) → low frequency
How ratio and frequency work together
Think of feeding like meals:
🍴 Small meals = eat more often 🍽️ Big meals = stay full longer
That's exactly how ratio and frequency relate:
- Low ratio (like 1:1:1) → only a little food, gets eaten quickly → needs higher frequency (feed more often)
- High ratio (like 1:4:4) → lots of food, lasts longer → can use lower frequency (feed less often)
So if you want to feed less often, use a bigger ratio. If you want a younger, milder starter for a specific bake, use a smaller ratio and feed more often.
What frequency should you actually use?
On the bench (room temperature)
Usually every 12-24 hours, depending on how warm your kitchen is and the ratio you're using. Warmer kitchen or lower ratio = feed more often. This isn't usually the choice for home bakers — it's time-consuming and wastes a lot of flour.
In the fridge (recommended for most home bakers)
About once a week. The cold slows everything down, so your starter eats much more slowly. You can sometimes stretch this longer if your fridge is very cold.
The process
-
- Take it out of the fridge. Pour off any hooch (the grey-brown liquid on top) or stir it back in — either is fine.
- Discard most of it, keep about 10g.
- Feed it 1:5:5: 10g starter + 50g flour + 50g water. Stir well.
- Leave it on the bench at warm room temperature for 1-3 hours — just long enough to see bubbles forming and a little rise. You don't need to wait for a full peak.
- Pop it back in the fridge until next week.
How this differs from a "baking" feed
-
- Only one feed (not two)
- You don't need to wait for peak
- You just want to see signs of life before it goes back in the cold
What if you forget a week?
Don't panic. A starter can survive for weeks (sometimes longer) in the fridge without a feed — it just gets progressively weaker and more sour. If you've skipped a few weeks, do two maintenance feeds back-to-back (12-24 hours apart) before returning it to the fridge, and it'll bounce back.
Using your starter from the fridge
A fridge starter is in sleep mode. Don't bake straight from it — it's hungry, sluggish, and won't give your dough enough rise. You need to wake it up first with two feeds.
The process
- Take it out of the fridge. You may see a grey-brown liquid on top called "hooch" — that's just alcohol from the yeast. Pour it off or stir it back in; either is fine.
- Discard most of it, keeping about 10g. This feels wasteful, but a small amount of starter with lots of fresh food wakes up faster than a big sluggish blob.
- First feed (1:5:5): 10g starter + 50g flour + 50g water. Stir well, cover loosely, leave on the bench at warm room temperature.
- Wait 4-8 hours. You're looking for bubbles forming and some rise — signs of life, not a full peak.
- Second feed. Discard most again, keep 10g, repeat the 1:5:5 feed.
- Wait for peak — doubled in size, domed on top, full of bubbles. At 26-28°C this takes 2-3 hours; in a cooler kitchen, more like 6-8 hours.
- Use it for baking while it's at peak or just past. Using one of our wheat recipes, you can skip the "starter build" as you already have a active levain at this stage.
Quick "is it ready?" test
Drop a small spoonful into a glass of room-temperature water. If it floats, it's ready. If it sinks, give it more time.
After baking
Feed the leftover one more time (10g + 50g + 50g), let it bubble for 1-2 hours so it shows signs of activity, then return it to the fridge until your next bake.
Example: Baking once a week
Let's say you want to bake Saturday morning. Here's a simple schedule:
Sunday → Thursday: rest in the fridge Your starter just sits there. After a week it'll look flat and smell a bit boozy — that's normal.
Friday morning (~24 hours before baking): Take it out of the fridge. Discard most of it, keeping about 10g. Feed it 1:5:5 → 10g starter + 50g flour + 50g water. Leave it on the bench at warm room temperature.
Friday evening (~12 hours later): Your starter should be active and bubbly. Discard most again, keep 10g. Feed it once more: 10g starter + 50g flour + 50g water. Leave it on the bench overnight.
Saturday morning: Your starter should be at peak — doubled, domed, full of bubbles. Use what you need for your dough.
After baking: Feed the leftover one more time (10g + 50g + 50g), let it show signs of life (1-2 hours of bubbling), then pop it back in the fridge for the week.
A few notes:
Why two feeds?
After a week in the fridge it's sluggish. The first feed wakes it up; the second gets it really lively for your bake.
Cooler kitchen?
If your kitchen is below 26-28°C, your starter will take longer to peak — maybe 6-8 hours instead of 2-3. Watch the starter, not the clock.
Need more for your recipe?
Just scale the final feed. If your recipe calls for 200g of starter, do 20g + 100g + 100g instead.
Must-read Guides About Sourdough Starters
The Truth About Feeding Your Sourdough Starter: Why Once a Day Isn't Enough
How to Keep Your Sourdough Starter Strong and Happy
Why Your Sourdough is Flat and Gummy (and How to Fix It)
12 Tips for Perfect Sourdough (Beginner Friendly)
What to Do with Sourdough Discard: 9 Delicious Recipes
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