Refresh Your Starter

[[Neal_Bowers?|Neal]] weighs his water and flour in to his starter (50g each); I use volume measures, I don't think it matters much. He ends up with a higher flour:water ratio so his starter is thicker.

How often to refresh?

The idea of sourdough is that you keep it on the counter, use it, refresh it, and bake every day. But we don't all do that.

So you can refrigerate immediately after refreshing. The warm water you use will let the sourdough grow as it cools in the fridge.

If you don't use your sourdough, refresh after a week in the fridge.

If you let it go many weeks in the fridge — if hooch liquid collects on top — you will have to:

• drain off the hooch
• refresh as below, every day (keeping the starter on the counter, not in the fridge) for five or six days before it’s back to its original vigour.

What Flour?

I use organic whole wheat flour. Organic whole white flour should be OK too.

How To Refresh

1. Discard ¾ of the starter - all but a couple tablespoons.
2. add ¼c flour
3. ¼c warm (body temperature - 100°F or 40°C) water
4. stir and scrape down the sides until absolutely 100% thoroughly mixed