How to Feed Sourdough Starter | March 13, 2024

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.

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