When is it time to put the starter in the fridge? After it passes 'float' test-or is this just for baking purposes?
Once it's in the fridge is there anything special I need to do besides feeding it once a week?
Do I continue with discarding a portion and then feeding what's left 1x a week?
Sourdough started was just fed this morning after sitting for 24hrs without feeding, was feeding every approx. 12 hours but it was not doing much. Fed with mostly AP today but I did add in some WW to give it a little extra. Going to feed again in approx. 12 hrs.
Any advice helps!
I'm pretty new to this myself but I've never bothered with the float test, I just noticed when it was doubling in size and then dropping back. About 8 days from beginning my starter I think in a house at 20 celsius seemed to do the job for me although I saw next to nothing for the first few days.
I hate the idea of throwing starter away so I only leave a couple of dessert spoons of starter in a jar in the fridge, feed 50g/50g on Friday night, use 100g starter on Saturday and put the remaining couple of dessert spoons back in the fridge. No waste.
Like I said, I'm pretty new too but I've found making the dough with AP flour is fine too as it doesn't seem to affect my sourdough like it would affect packet yeast bread. Always open to corrections if I'm doing something wrong though chaps.
What I have read, and done, is made sure it passes the float test (about 5 hours after feeding) and then making bread with it. If the bread works, the starter is ready to chill. I stiffen mine up, starting with 50 g starter and adding 75 g water and 100 g flour. My starter is fed 1:2:2. I suppose if you are working with a 1:1:1 starter then you reduce the water accordingly but I don't have experience with that. I don't know if the stiffening up matters or not but it's how I've been doing it. I have seen on KAF that they don't say you have to do that but they start theirs with less water than mine...
So much to learn non-obvious lessons that many of us take for granted... in the interest of not leaving too much to your imagination, I keep ~150 g of starter in the fridge.
I generally build a levain from my refrigerated starter by taking it through 3 12 hour generations. Like this:
36 hours before I want to mix dough
Gen 1: 5 g starter + 10 g water + 10 g flour (1:2:2)
12 hours later
Gen 2: Gen 1 + 50 g water + 50 g flour (1:2:2)
12 hours later
Gen 3: Gen 2 + 125 g water + 125 g flour (1:1:1)
12 hours later I should have ~375 g of fairly frisky levain
Sounds like a lot but I generally make enough dough for 2-3 800 g batards.
If I wanted a smaller batch of G3, I would discard some of Gen 2. (And I actually freeze the “discard” until I have enough for a batch of rosemary crackers.)
If I need to replenish my starter cache, I would target a slightly larger Gen 3 and take 50 g of that to mix with 50 g each water and flour, then refrigerate immediately. A caution... My kitchen tends to stay fairly cool (often low 60s overnight) so I am able to get 12 hours of active rise from a 1:1:1 feeding. If your kitchen stays warmer, you might find you need to feed at 1:3:3+ or shorten generation durations.
In any event you take some active levain, mix it with equal parts water and flour the refrigerate to retain starter for next bakes.
Good luck,
Phil