When feeding your starter you want to add equal parts bread flour and warm water to add up to the total weight of the starter. In my case when I scooped Jack out of his jar into a large bowl, he weighed 11 ounces.
I simply stirred in 5.5 ounces of bread flour and 5.5 ounces of warm water. Be careful the water isn't too warm; it can kill a starter. Remember, it's alive! Be nice to it! I usually use the same wrist test you would use to check a baby bottle or bath. No worries if it's too cool; it may just take longer to activate your starter. That's it! Now I leave him alone to wake up, grow, and begin bubbling. Below is a photo I took after only five minutes:
Looks a bit like pancake batter, smells a little funky, and tiny bubbles have already started to rise to the top. I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and left it on my butcher block table in the kitchen. Came back ten hours later and Jack looks like this now:
Lots of new little air bubbles! But he's not quite ready yet. 16 hours later and now Jack looks ready:
Doubled in size, covered in air bubbles, and ready to use! At this point you take out however much starter you need for your recipe and return the rest to a jar for the fridge but DON'T SEAL THE JAR. There are still gases escaping and could blow the lid. Just set the lid on top and screw it down after a day or two. If you don't bake very often but want to make sure your starter stays alive and well, simply throw out the extra starter you won't need; you'll have to feed it again soon anyway!
My starter took 16 hours to reach the ready-to-use point. Yours will be different, depending on the age and activity of the yeast. It also depends on the weather. It was about 65-70 degrees in my house where Jack was sitting, so if it's in the heat of the day in August your starter will obviously move faster. Plan to feed your starter 24 hours before you plan to bake; then you're sure to be ready!
As far as frequency of feeding goes, that will depend on you. Commercial bakeries feed their starters at least once every day and have the strongest ones out there. But I've forgotten about starters in the back of my fridge for up to a month or longer and they have revived just fine, though they took quite a while to wake up and then proof later. Simply put: more feedings make for stronger starters.
Next up: bread baking! Actually we'll start out easy and fun with sourdough pizza dough.
Happy feeding!
NOTES regarding equipment and ingredients:
*I have heard many times that metal bowls will react with your starter if you leave them to ferment. I've even heard it taken so far to say you shouldn't use any metal object to stir the starter with. Now, I've used all kinds of utensils and had no ill effects, but I've never left my starter to ferment in anything other than a glass bowl. I figure I have one; why take the chance?
*Bread flour is different from All Purpose flour in that you will get a much better bread product due to the higher gluten content. It makes for a more structured, chewy bread with a great crust, whereas cake flour, pastry flour, and AP flour (a mixture of pastry and bread) are lower in gluten and provides that necessary softness for cakes and pastries. If you plan on baking bread you really should get bread flour. Most grocery stores carry it now, and it's not any more expensive than AP flour.
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