Hi Nancy, the answer to many of your questions can be found in our Sourdough Baking Guide. In short, every time you're ready to use your sourdough starter, it needs to be "fed" beforehand (a.k.a. fresh water and flour are added); when it's straight from the fridge or has been on the counter inactive for a few days it's considered "unfed." Feeding your starter ensures that it will be active and ready to make the dough rise. Before the fresh water and flour can be added, part of the starter must be discarded or thrown out. This step is key to growing a successful sourdough starter; it helps keep the balance of the pH within a healthy level so that wild yeast and bacteria can thrive. It doesn't have to be a wasteful step, either. You can give away the discard to a friend to start their own culture, or you can use it in recipes like these. To get a better idea of what a fed or "ripe" starter looks like, check out this article here. Between the article and the guide, we hope you'll get a better understanding of how to feed your sourdough starter and why it's so important. Kye@KAF

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