Hi Susan, in order to determine if your starter is ready to successfully leaven your bread, look for it to at least double in volume consistently about 6-8 hours after a feeding. Once you're seeing that kind of activity, then you should be good to go! If your starter is still not rising well, you could certainly reduce it to a smaller starter size, at least until it's rising consistently. This is a good way to save on flour, and it's easy enough to build it back to a larger quantity when you're ready to bake.

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