Hello all!
New baker here. Yesterday I received a small jar of King Arthur sourdough starter. I followed the directions meticulously--feed, wait 8 hrs. Remove a cup, feed, wait twelve hours. All is good, but that is where the directions end! Now I have a giant bowl of lovely, bubbly starter, but what now? I would guess that there are about 10 cups in the bowl. It's currently on my counter at room temperature (but I am planning to keep it in the fridge I think). Do I remove and feed again now then store in the fridge? And if so, how much do i remove/ how much flour and water do I add?
Don't want to screw this up and I feel like I already missed a step!!
Thanks so much for your help!
B
to activate the starter and your starter is healthy and bubbly then bake with it. 10 cups is a lot! of starter. Ideally you want to only keep 1/2 - 1 cup in the fridge from which you'll take some off to build a levain (an off shoot starter by another name) and when your mother starter runs low you'll take it out, feed a couple of times to build strength and then return it to the fridge.
For now, as long as your starter is bubbly and smells good, I wouldn't build anymore but start to use some up.
Find yourself a small jar with a screw top making. Clean it thoroughly! Take 10g of your starter and feed it 50g water + 50g flour (40g bread flour or AP + 10g whole wheat or whole rye). Allow that to bubble up by half and place in the fridge. This will be your mother starter.
With the rest that you have in the bowl. Start to bake with it and use it up. It's mature, bubbly and ready to go. Cover it and keep it in the fridge taking as much as you need off each time. After that has been used up then concentrate, and keep, this one mother starter from which you'll build all the levains you need.
the best way to keep your starter happy is to keep it fresh, and that means using or discarding some on a daily basis if it isn't kept chilled. If you keep more like a cup or less, you won't feel bad even if you end up discarding most of it once or twice a week to keep it fast and fresh. It might not be realistic to use every bit of starter unless you plan to bake almost daily.
If you're new to baking with sourdough, I would start by using up some of that starter in waffle, pancake, banana bread recipes.
As these guys have stated, unless you're making several loaves of bread each day, you won't need to keep more than 1cup (I keep ~150-175g) of starter.
There are lots of great recipes on this site, and many others (KA is a great resource too, and many sourdough blogs), to get you moving on baking really delicious bread.
happy baking!
Thank you all so much! I am looking forward to lots of fresh-baked treats to come.