Hi Michelle, it's fine to stir in the hooch before discarding. If you mean by 100% water that your sourdough starter is composed of equal parts starter, flour and water by weight, and you're feeding with our Unbleached All-Purpose flour, then your starter should be the correct consistency. If you're using a lower protein flour that absorbs less liquid this could cause the consistency of your starter to be a bit thinner, as could measuring equal parts by volume, which would actually give you double the amount of water as opposed to flour. Look for the starter consistency to be a thick but easily stirrable paste right after feeding. As the starter begins to rise and ferment and contain bubbles throughout it will take on the consistency of a thick pancake batter. If you observe your starter after it has risen and then fallen, it will be thinner it consistency, with perhaps a thin layer of small bubbles on the surface. These are all normal stages of starter growth, so the consistency depends a lot on at what point in the process you're observing your starter. Also, during the creation process it's not uncommon for the starter to thin out a bit right before the wild yeast kicks in, so sometimes a thinner consistency is actually a good sign! I hope this helps! Let us know how your starter develops. 

Barb

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