Hi Monica, first, there's no need to discard the hooch when feeding your starter—I would simply stir it together before discarding a portion, and feeding the remainder. The reason I discarded the dark hooch in the very neglected starter is that it looked so unappetizing. However, discarding a portion of your starter when feeding is generally necessary because you want to maintain the balance of ingredients so the starter can function consistently. Feeding more and more starter with a relatively smaller and smaller meal is not only going to result in a starter that takes over your kitchen, it will also likely cause your starter to perform erratically. Feeding your starter regularly and consistently will allow it to perform consistently. That being said, there's nothing wrong with building your starter quantity in preparation for baking. If, for example, you normally feed your starter with 113g each of starter, flour and water, but you know you want to bake a recipe that calls for two cups (454g) of starter, then you need to plan ahead to build to that amount, with enough left over to feed and maintain. This "build" can generally take place during the last feeding before you plan to bake. When measuring by weight you know that you need 454g + 113g of ripe starter, which equals 567g of ripe starter. Let's round that up a bit to 585, since some starter always sticks to the side of the container. If you divide 585 by 3, this equals 195g. So, if the last feeding before you plan to bake you save 195g of starter and feed it 195g of water and 195g of flour, this will result in 585 g of ripe starter—plenty for your recipe, plus enough to feed and perpetuate. Whether or not your wholemeal walnut and poppy seed bread recipe will work well with 2 cups of ripe starter is another matter. Wholegrain recipes do tend to ferment more quickly than white flour recipes, so adding more starter may make things happen more rapidly than is desirable. And the difficulty wholegrain recipes have in rising doesn't have to do with inadequate yeast or starter, but the fact that the bran in wholegrain flour tends to interfere with gluten development, resulting in a denser loaf. To obtain a stronger rise it might be more helpful for you to add vital wheat gluten to your recipe, or include some strong white flour, in addition to the wholegrain flour. I know this is a lot of information, so I hope I didn't overwhelm you! Good luck, and let us know how it goes! 

Barb

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