Hello. I'm hoping you can give me a little guidance on feeding and using my sourdough starter.

First Q - I'm using a hard red bread flour and my starter typically doubles or triples within 4 hours of feeding. I'm new to this and my starter is only a couple weeks old, so I'm still following the starter guidance of dumping waste, saving about a half cup and feeding it once every 12 hours. Just want to make sure the starter is good and active. Since it rises to peak within 4 hours, is it a bad thing that it then collapses and stays that way for another 8 hours until I feed it again? Or is this completely fine? It always so sad to watch it sink. :(

Second Q - For a recipe I'm tackling, I need to make a leaven using 1 tbsp. of my starter. When should I "harvest" the starter for the leaven - at peak after a feeding, as it's collapsing or when it's due to be fed?

Thanks for your help!

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