I'm new to sourdough science, and after MUCH reluctant patience over feeding my fledging starter (16+ days) I've been enjoying baking with a nice active and predictable starter for several weeks now. Thank you for all the useful instruction and advice you offer here...without it, I would surely have given up!

I do not bake every day...so I store my starter int he refrigerator and slow down the feeding to once per week during storage time. So now I've been thinking, is there any reason why I couldn't save/store a smaller amount of starter in my refrigerator, and then double up the volume several times when activating it? Then I might be able to avoid discarding?

Is there any benefit to discarding starter, besides managing the overall volume?

(I've tried a number of the recipes for discard...but all the extra baking is not helping my expanding waistline!)

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