Hello, just beginning with my new starter, so I have a question. When my starter rises, do I have to discard half of it and feed it, or do I just mix it, let the air bubbles out and let it rise again?
I've only been at this for a year or so maybe I'm missing some important details but from my perspective, it all comes down to how much levain you want at the end of your "wake up" process. Like you, I started out discarding a lot more levain than I wanted to. Then I started making crackers with the discard so It became a moot point...until I acquired way more discard than I could use, so back to the initial problem. Sooooo...
Now I try to target a certain amount of levain for dough mixing day. Since I usually want to develop 3 generations of levain before mixing, it goes something like this:
Target levain quantity: 300 g
Gen 1: 10 g starter (from my refrigerated cache), 20 g water, 20 g flour
Gen 2: 50 g (ALL!) Gen 1 levain, 50 g water, 50 g flour
Gen 3: 150 g (ALL!) Gen 2 levain, 75 g water, 75 g flour
I've drifted away from my old practice of always using 1:2:2 ratios and 12 hour generations because I've noticed that when a levain reaches it's maximum lift, it will hang out up there for several hours (with some yeast population decline, I suppose) before dropping back down. So, while I generally still plan on 12 hour generations, I accept that I might not mix dough at my gen 3 levain's absolute most active phase. But not to worry, I'm mixing that levain into a feast of floury yeast munchies. I probably occasionally lengthen my required bulk fermentation time but I hardly notice since I always retard bulk with at least 1 night in the fridge after 3-4 hours at room temp.
A few disclaimers. My kitchen is generally quite cool overnight when Gens 1 & 3 usually do most of their work. It's 62 dF as I write this at 6:00 AM. So a warmer environment might require a modified strategy. Yeast will consume at higher rates in warmer environments so adjustments might be required. For example, you might settle for a small discard before building G3 at a 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 ratio. I've developed my practices to work with my schedule and to attempt to keep it simple. There are many experts here who might advise you differently. Just saying this generally works for me.
I've only been at this for a year or so maybe I'm missing some important details but from my perspective, it all comes down to how much levain you want at the end of your "wake up" process. Like you, I started out discarding a lot more levain than I wanted to. Then I started making crackers with the discard so It became a moot point...until I acquired way more discard than I could use, so back to the initial problem. Sooooo...
Now I try to target a certain amount of levain for dough mixing day. Since I usually want to develop 3 generations of levain before mixing, it goes something like this:
Target levain quantity: 300 g
Gen 1: 10 g starter (from my refrigerated cache), 20 g water, 20 g flour
Gen 2: 50 g (ALL!) Gen 1 levain, 50 g water, 50 g flour
Gen 3: 150 g (ALL!) Gen 2 levain, 75 g water, 75 g flour
I've drifted away from my old practice of always using 1:2:2 ratios and 12 hour generations because I've noticed that when a levain reaches it's maximum lift, it will hang out up there for several hours (with some yeast population decline, I suppose) before dropping back down. So, while I generally still plan on 12 hour generations, I accept that I might not mix dough at my gen 3 levain's absolute most active phase. But not to worry, I'm mixing that levain into a feast of floury yeast munchies. I probably occasionally lengthen my required bulk fermentation time but I hardly notice since I always retard bulk with at least 1 night in the fridge after 3-4 hours at room temp.
A few disclaimers. My kitchen is generally quite cool overnight when Gens 1 & 3 usually do most of their work. It's 62 dF as I write this at 6:00 AM. So a warmer environment might require a modified strategy. Yeast will consume at higher rates in warmer environments so adjustments might be required. For example, you might settle for a small discard before building G3 at a 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 ratio. I've developed my practices to work with my schedule and to attempt to keep it simple. There are many experts here who might advise you differently. Just saying this generally works for me.
Phil