Hi Fiona, without a little more information about your starter and how you maintain it, it's difficult for me to determine exactly what's happening. Are you discarding some of the starter each time you feed it, so the ratio of ingredients in your starter stays relatively consistent? Are you feeding by weight or by volume? How warm is it where you keep your starter? When you took a tablespoon of starter for your test, how much flour and water did you feed it? All these factors will influence the rate of fermentation. Since you've only been feeding weekly, I would try feeding your starter twice a day at room temperature for a few days, following our sourdough starter recipe. Weigh your ingredients, if possible, which should help keep your starter consistency more in line with the starter we use in our recipes. You may also find our Sourdough Baking Guide helpful—it will walk you through creating a starter to baking your first loaf of entirely naturally leavened sourdough bread, with lots of great sourdough information along the way. I hope this helps! Let us know how it goes! 

Barb

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