Showerthought: starter feeding schedules are way too complicated for beginners

A guy on the subreddit last week told me to only feed my starter once a week and keep it in the fridge, and after 3 months of daily discarding I finally realized he was right all along, anybody else think the internet overcomplicates the basics?

2 comments

2 Comments

val_wilson21d ago

Well you're not wrong that daily discarding is a lot more work than it needs to be for most people. The thing is, a lot of those complicated starter instructions are written for people who want to bake every single day, not for your average home baker who wants a loaf on the weekend. Keeping it in the fridge and feeding it once a week is totally fine, as long as you let it warm up and get active again before you bake with it. The real trick is just paying attention to how it smells and looks rather than following some strict timer. I think a lot of the online advice forgets that sourdough has been made for centuries without any of this fuss.

riley_bell21d ago

That actually shifted how I look at the whole sourdough thing. I used to be one of those people who followed the daily discard schedule to the letter, felt like I was failing if I missed a day. Now I just keep mine in the fridge and feed it maybe Wednesday night for a weekend bake, works just fine. The smell test thing is huge, too much advice online is written like a chemistry experiment instead of just paying attention to your starter. It's wild how many people get scared off by the complicated instructions when really it's just flour and water doing its thing. Probably would have saved myself a lot of wasted flour if someone had told me this years ago.