Hi Julia, congratulations on getting your starter off and running! And your instincts are spot on when it comes to starter maintenance — ideally you do want to replenish (feed) your starter when it's at its peak of rising, or just beginning to fall. Feeding in this way will help to keep yeast activity strong, while allowing the starter to fall significantly between feedings tends to lead to sluggish yeast behavior.

Rather than trying to feed your starter every four hours (which gets a little crazy), it can be helpful to make some changes to your feeding routine. Keep in mind that temperature also plays an important roll in the rate of fermentation; with warmer temperatures your starter is likely to ferment more quickly, while in winter months it will slow down. This means that you may want to tweak your starter feeding routine seasonally, as the weather changes. 

The goal is to find a twice a day feeding routine that allows you to replenish your starter when it's close to the peak, or just beginning to fall. To that end, offering your starter a relatively larger meal (less starter, as compared to water/flour fed) tends to slow down fermentation and should help get you closer to the 12 hour mark. These adjustments are based on weight, rather than volume, so it can be a bit tricky if you don't have a scale. Consider that our normal starter maintenance routine calls for a 1:1:1 ratio of starter:water:flour, by weight, and a typical feeding consists of 1/2 cup (4 ounces, 113g) starter + 1/2 cup (4 ounces, 113g) water + 1 scant cup (4 ounces, 113g) flour. To slow down fermentation you could try a 1:2:2 or even 1:4:4 ratio, by weight. If you don't have a scale that might look like: 1/4 cup starter + 1/2 cup water + 1 scant cup flour (1:2:2), or 1/8 cup starter + 1/2 cup water + 1 scant cup flour (1:4:4). 

Once you've found a feeding routine that allows you to replenish close to the peak, then you should be golden. Keep in mind that you can also slow things down on warm summer days by feeding with cooler water. 

The ideal time to add starter to your bread recipes is when it's "ripe," which means when it's at that peak of rising, or just beginning to fall, so keeping an eye on your starter and noticing how long it takes to reach that peak will be helpful in planning your baking as well. 

I hope this helps! Let us know how it goes. 

Barb

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