hey guys it's Bettie and today we are going to talk all about how to maintain
your sourdough starter. now hopefully if you are watching this video you have
been following along the sourdough for beginners series and you have a really
nice and active starter that you are ready to start baking with but if you're
new to this series there is a link down in the description for this playlist so
you can go ahead and get caught up with us. okay let's talk about maintaining our
starter. now there are two main ways that you can store your sourdough starter you
can store it out on the counter or you can store it in your refrigerator. now
storing it on the counter is the ideal way to store your starter because
feeding it very regularly is going to be the best way to keep it really nice and
active but if you do keep it at room temperature you do need to feed it every
single day and I totally understand if that's not something you want to do. if
you don't want to feed your starter everyday then you can store it in the
refrigerator .so cold temperatures are going to really slow down the activity
of your yeast and bacteria so you won't need to feed it as frequently. if you do
store it in the refrigerator ideally you need to feed it every 7 to 10 days. now
if you kind of forget about your starter for a while and don't feed it for a few
weeks do not throw it out. sourdough starters are very resilient and they're
actually very difficult to kill so if you forget about it for a few weeks go
ahead and give it a few regular feedings and it should become active again. okay
so let's go ahead and do our maintenance feeding now we are going to use the same
ratios that we've been using in the last few days and that is a 1-3-3 feeding so
if you remember this means that we keep one part starter and we add 3 parts
flour and three parts water. the only thing we are going to change this time
is we're going to be giving it part wheat flour and part unbleached
all-purpose flour so if we keep 25 grams of our starter like we've been doing the
past few days we're going to give it 25 grams of whole wheat flour and
50 grams of unbleached all-purpose flour now this equals a total of 75
grams of flour just like we've been doing over the past few days the only
difference here is a third of that flour is whole wheat and two thirds of that
flour is all-purpose flour. so don't get too overwhelmed with this I have written
it all out in the written post and in the printable schedule that is linked
down in the description so let's go ahead and feed our starter. now my jar
that I've been building my starter in is getting a little bit crusty so I'm going
to move it into a clean jar and I typically do this about every seven days
when I am doing daily feedings but just use your best judgment and when your jar
looks like it's ready for a new one then go ahead and move it into a clean jar
now make sure you do take the weight of your empty jar when you're moving it
into a clean jar and write that down so that you know how much the jar weighs
when you go to do your feedings so mine weighs 655 grams. okay now I'm going to
tare my scale and I'm going to add 25 grams of my starter into my new jar. now
my starter was fed 24 hours ago, it has already fallen completely which means it
is hungry and it's ready to be fed so 25 grams of starter and then we're going to
add 25 grams of whole wheat flour
perfect and then we need 50 grams of our unbleached all-purpose flour and this
flour does need to be unbleached or it will not work very well in your starter
okay and now we just need to add our 75 grams of water and remember this water
has been warmed up to about 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit okay and just like
we've been doing every other day we will mix that together until it is well
combined. now that I have fed my starter it should be ready for me to use in a
bread dough within about the next 6 to 12 hours and you always want to be sure
that all of that flour is completely absorbed in and I'm just going to cover
this again not airtight and let it start fermenting. so now that your starter is
really nice and active you can actually start saving your sourdough discard so
I'm actually going to move this into a clean jar and store it in the
refrigerator and every day I go to feed my starter I will just keep adding my
discard to that jar. now there are quite a few different things that you can do
with your sourdough discard and there's an entire video coming out soon all
about that so we'll look out for that video so now that your starter is nice
and fed there are a few different things you can do with it. you could bake with
it later today which is what I am going to do with mine so it should be ready to
bake with in about six hours and anywhere up to 12 hours after you feed
it and it the way you know that your starter is ready to be added into a
bread dough is you do the same float test that I showed you in the last video
so you're going to take a spoonful of your starter and very gently drop it in
a cup of water and if it floats then it is vigorous enough to add into a bread
dough. now once it gets to that point where it is vigorous enough you usually
have a few hours timeframe for it to stay vigorous enough to put it in your
bread dough but at a certain point it is going to start falling and then it won't
be active enough to use in your bread dough so if you do that float test
and it doesn't float it either isn't ready or you have waited too long and it
has started to fall and is losing all of that volume now. I'm going to be using
about a hundred grams of this starter in a bread recipe later today which is my
easiest sourdough recipe and that will be coming up in a video soon but
tomorrow when I go to feed this that means I'll only have a little bit of
starter to discard when I do my feeding now on days when I'm not going to be
baking with my starter I will often keep a smaller portion of it and do our same
ratios of feedings but that way I don't have as much to discard the next day. now
if that is too confusing for you just go ahead and do the same feeding every time
and that is going to work out just fine but if you are interested in learning
how to reduce your discard and you have questions about that go ahead and ask me
in the comment section. now if you do want to store your starter in the
refrigerator after you feed it let it sit out on your counter for a few hours
until it gets nice and the bubbly then you can go ahead and put it in the
refrigerator. when you're ready to feed it again take it out of the refrigerator
and feed it as you normally do and then let it sit out again for a few more
hours before you store it back in the refrigerator. now if you do want to bake
with your starter and you've been storing it in the refrigerator you
usually want to take it out with enough time to give it a few feedings before
you start your bread dough so if I want to start a bread dough on a Friday I'll
typically take my starter out of the refrigerator on Wednesday and feed it
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so it's nice and active to use in my bread dough
now I know this is a lot of information to take in but please don't let it
stress you out. I have written everything in detail in
my full written article that is linked down in the description box. the main
thing to remember about your sourdough starter is you need to keep a little bit
of starter and give it water and flour. that's really it. if you forget to feed
it sometimes or if you mess up the ratios every once in a while it's going
to be okay just get back on schedule and it's going to work out great for you. if
you have any questions for me please leave those down in the comment
section and let me know how your sourdough starters are going okay I'll
see you guys next time