We are having a tough time making a decent loaf! Our starter has been alive for about 3 weeks. We’ve been using 30 g AP flour, 30 g whole wheat flour and 60 g of water. It developed an alcohol smell, so we have adjusted to flours to 40AP and 20WW per King Arthur Flour’s recommendations. Is there any benefit to reducing our hydration to 75%? Our dough ALWAYS flattens after shaping and proofing. Every. Single. Time. The dough feels wet and sticky and never maintains shape. We are starting to wonder if it’s something about our starter? We always had been waiting too long after the last feeding to start the baking process (and admit to overproofing a time or two). We started keeping the starter in the fridge and feeding it every few days because we felt like it was constantly being fed. Also is it necessary to discard sourdough starter or can you keep it growing as to prepare for using more of it in a recipe? We’ve reduced discards but have been feeding it the same amount of flour every feed...and realized we should adjust the ratio to correspond with the weight of the starter. We’re definitely making a lot of mistakes and feel like we need a personal sourdough coach.

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