Avis, you're on the right track! When you need to build your starter, it's fine to retain more starter and feed it an equal amount of flour and water. Say you need two cups of starter (16 ounces) for a recipe, for the last feeding before using your starter in your recipe you could save 7 ounces of starter and feed it 7 ounces of water and 7 ounces of starter; this will give you 21 ounces of starter--enough to use 16 in your recipe and have 5 ounces left over to feed and maintain. By keeping the ratio of ingredients the same in your starter it will stay more consistent in its rising and falling, but it also works to simply double the amount of flour and water you normally feed your starter. In this case your starter will rise more slowly because it has more food to consume. Barb@KAF

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