Hi Diana, if the variety of Robin Hood flour you're using happens to be bleached, I would recommend switching to an unbleached variety of All-Purpose flour. However, even if you have been using unbleached AP flour, it's not uncommon for the starter process to take longer than our recipe indicates. Patience almost always pays off when it comes to sourdough starters, so I would encourage you to continue, but you have a few options to choose from going forward:

1. Continue exactly as you're doing, but reduce the size of your starter, at least until it begins to rise predictably. This will save on flour, and it's easy enough to increase the quantity of starter you have available once your starter is doubling nicely. 

2. According to microbiologist and sourdough baker, Debra Wink, it can be helpful to increase the acidity of the starter environment when it hits a lull in rising like you are experiencing. To that end, you could modify your feeding routine as follows:

*Feed only once a day. 

*Feed with whole wheat flour or whole rye flour (instead of AP flour). 

*Feed with a ratio of 2 parts starter : 1 part water : 1 part wholegrain flour (2:1:1, by weight). For our sourdough starter recipe, your modified feeding routine would become one feeding a day of: 1/2 cup (113g) starter + 1/4 cup (57g) water + 1/2 cup (57g) wholegrain flour. If you wanted to do a smaller starter version of this feeding it would be: 30g starter + 15g water + 15g wholegrain flour. 

Once your starter begins rising predictably (twice) with this feeding routine, then it's important to resume twice a day feedings (which will further promote yeast activity). At that point you can also go back to the 1:1:1 ratio (starter:water:flour, by weight) of ingredients recommended in our standard recipe, and gradually transition to feeding with AP flour again over the course of several feedings. 

Once your starter is doubling predictably with the AP flour and twice a day feedings, then you can consider your starter mature and ready to bake bread. 

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

Barb

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