How to Feed and Maintain a Sourdough Starter: Ratios, Schedules, and Fixes
Knowing how to feed a sourdough starter comes down to one short routine: keep a little starter, add equal weights of flour and water, and let it rise. The standard sourdough starter feeding ratio is 1:1:1 by weight. Keep 50 grams of starter, feed it 50 grams of bread flour and 50 grams of filtered water, and discard the rest.
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On the counter, that happens once a day, or twice in a warm kitchen. In the fridge, it drops to once a week, which is the sourdough starter maintenance routine most home bakers can actually keep. Either way, a starter is strongest at peak, the moment it stops rising and just before it sinks, usually 4-8 hours after feeding. If yours is not established yet, start with the 7-day sourdough starter guide instead.
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Counter or Fridge: Choose Your Routine
- Counter, for frequent bakers. Feed at 1:1:1 every day. You keep an active sourdough starter in a jar on the counter, ready to use most of the day. It costs you a daily feed and a fair amount of discard.
- Fridge, for everyone else. Feed once a week. The cold slows fermentation almost to a stop, so the starter holds steady between feeds. It costs you a wake-up feed the day before you bake.
Most home bakers should choose the fridge and stop feeling guilty about it. A weekly feed is a habit you can keep. A twice-daily feed for a starter you use twice a month is not, and choosing the harder routine and then abandoning it is one of the common mistakes beginners make with sourdough. A starter kept on either routine has all the lift a sourdough sandwich bread needs, even though that loaf relies on the starter alone with no commercial yeast.
After trying both room-temperature and refrigerated maintenance, I settled on keeping my starter in the refrigerator because I usually bake only once or twice a week. It keeps the routine simple, uses much less flour, and I've found it much easier to stay consistent with weekly feeds than trying to keep up with daily maintenance. If discard is piling up faster than you can bake with it, sourdough discard crackers use a full cup at a time.
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How Often to Feed a Sourdough Starter
Temperature, not the calendar, sets the sourdough starter feeding schedule:
- Counter, 78°F and above: twice a day, about 12 hours apart. Ready to bake 4-6 hours after a feed.
- Counter, 68-77°F: once a day. Ready to bake 6-8 hours after a feed.
- Counter, below 68°F: once a day, but expect a slow rise. Fermentation drags in the cold, so a warmer spot helps more than extra feeds.
- Fridge: once a week, with a wake-up feed before baking.
How often to feed a sourdough starter also depends on how fast yours eats. If it peaks and collapses long before the next scheduled feed, feed it more often or move it somewhere cooler. Regular feeds mean discard building up in the fridge, and sourdough granola takes a full cup of unfed discard and turns it into big crunchy clusters that keep for weeks.
Sourdough Starter Feeding Ratios
The ratio is written starter:flour:water, by weight. The first number is how much starter you keep; the other two are what you feed it.
- 1:1:1, the standard. Keep 50 g starter, feed 50 g flour and 50 g water. This is the everyday feed, and the one to use unless you have a reason not to.
- 1:2:2, for a longer gap. Keep 25 g starter, feed 50 g flour and 50 g water. More food per unit of culture, so it takes longer to peak. Useful in a warm kitchen or when you need to stretch the time between feeds.
- 1:5:5, overnight. Keep 20 g starter, feed 100 g flour and 100 g water. Feed this before bed, and it will be at peak in the morning.
- 1:1:1 small, to maintain a small sourdough starter with less discard. Keep 20 g starter, feed 20 g flour and 20 g water. Same ratio, smaller jar, and less than half the flour going in the trash.
More flour relative to starter means more food and a longer time to peak. That is the whole logic behind every sourdough starter feeding ratio. Weigh everything, because a cup of flour can vary by up to 20 percent depending on how it was scooped, and ratios built on cups drift. Timing matters most when the whole bake has to fit inside one day. For a one-day bake, this is how to feed a sourdough starter: feed at 1:5:5 the night before, and you can mix this same-day sourdough bread first thing in the morning with the starter at peak.
How to Read Peak and Fall
Learning how to feed a sourdough starter is half the job; reading its peak is the other half. After a feed, a sourdough starter rises, holds at its highest point, then sinks back. Peak is that highest point, when the culture has the most gas and the most lifting power. Put a rubber band around the jar at the level of the starter right after feeding. When the starter reaches double that mark and the surface goes from domed to flat, it is at peak. That is also the answer to how soon you can use a starter after feeding: usually 4-8 hours, and within about an hour either side of peak.
After the fall, the surface sinks, a residue line stays high on the glass to show where it got to, and the texture loosens. A fallen starter is not ruined and will still leaven bread, more slowly and with a sharper flavor. But if your loaves come out dense and you cannot work out why, check the timing of the starter first, ahead of the other usual bread baking problems.
What finally clicked for me was realizing that my starter doesn't follow the clock. It follows my kitchen. In warmer weather it can peak much sooner than expected, while cooler days stretch the timeline. Now I look for a doubled starter with a rounded top and lots of bubbles instead of relying on a specific number of hours before mixing my dough.
How to Feed a Sourdough Starter From the Fridge
These sourdough starter maintenance instructions cover the whole fridge routine, from storing the jar to waking it up for a bake.
To store it. Feed the starter, let it sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours to get going, then rest the lid on loosely and refrigerate it. Feeding right before it goes in gives it food to sit on through the week.
To maintain it. The simplest way to maintain a sourdough starter in the fridge is once a week: take it out, discard down to 50 grams, feed at 1:1:1, leave it on the counter for 2 hours, and put it back. The whole thing takes five minutes.
To wake it up for baking. To feed a sourdough starter from the fridge for baking, take it out the day before. Discard down to 50 grams and feed at 1:1:1, then leave it on the counter. After 8-12 hours, feed again. After the second feed it should double within 4-8 hours, and that is when it is ready. A starter that has been cold for a long time may need a third feed, which is also how to strengthen a sourdough starter that comes out of the fridge sluggish.
If you are going away. Two weeks is well within what a fridge starter tolerates. Feed it, let it sit out for an hour, refrigerate it, and run the wake-up routine when you get back.
If you forgot it for a month. It is probably fine, since a neglected starter is far more likely to need reviving than replacing. Here is how to revive a sourdough starter after a month away: expect a layer of dark liquid on top, called hooch, and a sharp smell. Pour off the liquid, scrape 20 grams from the middle of the jar into a clean jar, and feed twice a day. Most starters come back within three days. If hooch keeps showing up during normal weeks, feed more often or switch to a bigger ratio so there is more food between feeds.
Sourdough Starter Maintenance FAQs
Cold is the most common cause. Below about 68°F, fermentation slows dramatically, and a starter can look dead while still being active. The second cause is underfeeding: a starter fed once a day in a warm kitchen may be peaking and collapsing before you ever see it. Here is how to fix a weak sourdough starter: put it on a twice-daily sourdough starter feeding schedule at 1:1:1 in a consistently warm spot for three or four days before judging it, since warmth, more than any ingredient change, is how to make a sourdough starter stronger. If it is still sluggish after a week, try a different bag of flour.
A starter that has gone thin and liquid is usually too warm and eating too fast. Move it somewhere cooler and feed on schedule. If it is still slack, hold back a little water on the next feed to bring it to a thick batter consistency, and keep it there.
Rarely, but yes. Fuzzy growth, black or orange spots, or a pink tinge means throw it out and start again. Dark liquid, a sharp smell, and gray discoloration are all normal and fixable. Never seal the jar airtight, since fermentation produces gas that needs somewhere to go. When in doubt, the test is fuzz: mold is fuzzy, hooch is not.
While you are maintaining a starter at a steady size, yes, or the jar fills up and the ratio collapses. The simplest fix is knowing how to keep a small sourdough starter: hold it at 20 grams instead of 50, which cuts the discard by more than half and still bakes fine. You can also collect discard in a jar in the fridge and use it in pancakes, crackers, or granola instead of throwing it out.
Keeping Your Starter Going
Once you know how to feed a sourdough starter on a routine that suits your week, it mostly takes care of itself. When it is doubling reliably, bake a lemon blueberry sourdough bread with fresh berries folded into the dough, and from there these sourdough bread variations will keep you busy.
How often do you feed yours, and does it live on the counter or in the fridge? Tell me in the comments. I am always curious how other people fit this around a real week.
Equipment
- Wide-mouth glass jar (32 oz)
Ingredients
- 50 g active sourdough starter
- 50 g bread flour unbleached
- 50 g filtered water
Instructions
Discard
- Weigh the jar with the starter in it and discard down to 50 g. Save the discard in a separate jar in the fridge if you want to use it.
Feed
- Add 50 g bread flour and 50 g filtered water. Stir until no dry flour remains and scrape down the sides.
- Mark the level with a rubber band and rest the lid on loosely.
Rise
- Leave in a warm spot for 4-8 hours, until the starter has doubled and the domed surface just begins to flatten. That is peak.
Use or store
- Use it at peak, feed again, or refrigerate it until the next weekly feed.
Notes
- Feeding schedule: once a day on the counter, twice a day at 78°F and above, once a week in the fridge.
- Ratios: 1:1:1 standard, 1:2:2 for a longer gap, 1:5:5 overnight. The first number is starter, then flour, then water, all by weight.
- To wake a fridge starter for baking, feed twice at 1:1:1, 8-12 hours apart, starting the day before you bake.
- Keep a 20 g starter fed at 1:1:1 for much less discard.
- Dark liquid on top means hungry, not spoiled. Fuzzy growth or pink or orange color means start over.