My starter is nearly 4 weeks old and after 3 weeks of feeding without any activities, I decided to boost it with some pineapple juice for 3 days and it finally doubled in size. Yesterday evening I backed to spring water and after 12 hours, it has risen just a tiny bit but super bubbly and it passed the float test. I think that I will give it some more feedings before baking my first loaf. Also I feed my starter with bleached bread flour since I could not find any unbleached flour where I live. Any advice?
How high is the hydration? I can imagine the bleached flour is also a factor...
I had a similar problem. My started bubbled up and doubled in size after the first couple of days, then it would get bubbly but barely rise at all. I found a very helpful comment on this forum - I had read that you should feed your starter with 1:2:2 every 24 hours, then I also somewhere a suggestions to go 1:10:10, on the basis that more food attracts more yeast. Someone in the furum suggested I feed it 2:1:1 because basically the feedings were "diluting" my yeast too much. After 1 or 2 feedings at 2:1:1 my starter is tripling in size and looking gorgeous.