I am with you on this. I have been baking with my (home built) starter for 15+ years. (Before than I maintained a “biga” from batch to batch: I try to avoid commercial yeast). I was intimidated by starter for a long time because its care made it sound so fragile.
It is not. It is amazing stuff. I think of the CA gold rush 49-ers who slept with their starter; our ancestors who baked with starter for centuries— they for sure didn’t have spare flour to wantonly chuck. So when I started my own I figured, it has to deal with how I live or it will never work for me.
And it has thrived, only getting more sturdy thru the years.
I bake once a week or so, depending on how many people are around to eat my bread. Now that my kids are more gone than here it is sometimes every 8-10 days. I store it in my fridge between-times. When we need bread, I take it out, feed it with the doubling routine (water and flour equal in weight to the starter itself). It sits on my counter, then, until it is clearly happy and bubbling. (The time required varies depending if it is winter or summer temps in my kitchen-)
I take the amount I store (about 3-4 ounces) and stick it right back in the fridge and use *all the rest of the fed starter* to bake with. Right away. No extra feedings. No discard. (The only time I have discarded is on the exceedingly rare occasions I am totally away from home for 2.5 to 3 weeks: when I might chuck some before I start feeding. And those are the only times I might do two build-it-up type feedings (with no further discard) before baking with it.).

I let my starter talk to me- it’s obvious if it is happy (or unhappy- super rare). When it is crabby I just build it gradually and then fridge my 3-4 ounces in a just-fed state and bake with the rest. I know this wouldn’t work for everyone, but I do think the multiple feedings and babying processes are unnecessary- and sometimes intimidating to the baker who is new to sourdough. But KA’s point- we figure out what works for us- is an excellent one.
The great thing is we get to eat our learning process results :)

• Reply