Here’s a secret the sourdough internet doesn’t advertise: there is no single correct sourdough starter feeding schedule. There are only schedules that fit your life and ones that don’t. The baker who feeds twice daily and bakes every weekend needs a completely different rhythm than the parent who bakes one loaf a month — and both can keep a gloriously healthy starter.
I’ve run all three of the schedules below at different points since 2018: the daily counter routine during my obsessed-baker phase, the weekly fridge routine now that I teach workshops and have a life, and the pre-bake build whenever a bake day looms. This guide maps each one as a calendar you can copy.
New to the mechanics? Read how to feed a sourdough starter first, and check the feeding ratio guide to understand the numbers behind each schedule. For the full starter-ownership picture, see the complete sourdough starter guide.
The Daily Counter Routine (For Frequent Bakers)
The daily counter routine keeps your starter at room temperature and feeds it once or twice a day at 1:1:1 or 1:2:2. Feed morning and evening (roughly 12 hours apart) if your kitchen is warm or you bake daily; once a day at 1:2:2 works in cooler kitchens or for every-other-day bakers. The starter stays at peak vigor and is always bake-ready within hours.
This is the schedule for the obsessed — said with love, as a recovering member. Your starter lives on the counter in its Weck jar, and feeding it becomes as automatic as making coffee.
The twice-daily version (my 2019–2021 era): 7:30 AM feed at 1:2:2 before work, 7:30 PM feed at 1:2:2 after dinner. Each feed took three minutes. The starter peaked around the next feed like clockwork, and I could decide to bake on any given evening with zero planning. Maurizio Leo of The Perfect Loaf runs a version of this at 1:5:5, twelve hours apart, kept at 72–78°F — the gold standard if your kitchen runs warm.
The once-daily version: one 1:2:2 feed each morning. This works when your kitchen sits around 65–70°F and the starter takes a full 12+ hours to peak and fall. In my Portland kitchen, October through April, this is plenty.
The tradeoff is flour and attention: twice-daily feeding at 1:2:2 uses about 200 grams of flour a day. That’s why so many of us eventually migrate to the fridge routine — which is not a downgrade, just a different strategy.
The Weekly Fridge Routine (For Occasional Bakers)
The weekly fridge routine stores your starter in the refrigerator and feeds it once a week at 1:1:1 or 1:2:2. Cold storage slows fermentation to a crawl, so one small weekly feed keeps the culture healthy indefinitely. Pull it out 1–2 days before baking for a couple of room-temperature feeds to restore full vigor.
This is my current schedule, and honestly, it’s the one I’d recommend to 80% of home bakers. King Arthur Baking’s guidance is exactly this: keep it at room temperature with daily feeds if you bake frequently, or “store it in the refrigerator and feed it once a week, pulling it out to warm and refresh before your next bake day.”
As their bakers note, “the more frequently you feed it, the less time and effort it takes to get your starter ripe and ready for baking” — the fridge routine just front-loads a little patience on bake week in exchange for six feed-free days.
My Sunday ritual: take the jar out, let it warm for an hour, discard down to 30 grams, feed 30/30/30, leave it on the counter for 2–3 hours until it shows the first signs of rising, then back into the fridge. Total active time: five minutes. The starter I pull out next Sunday looks sleepy but alive — maybe a thin layer of hooch on top, which I stir in or pour off depending on my mood.
One caveat from experience: don’t refrigerate a brand-new starter. A culture under a month old hasn’t built the resilience for cold storage and long gaps. Keep it on the counter with daily feeds for the first 3–4 weeks, then transition to the fridge. The full cold-storage protocol — including the wake-up sequence — lives in my guide to storing sourdough starter.
The Pre-Bake Build (Bake-Day Countdown)
The pre-bake build is a 24–36 hour sequence that takes a fridge-kept starter from dormant to peak vigor: an evening revival feed at 1:1:1, a morning feed, and an evening build feed at 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 sized to your recipe, so you wake up to ripe starter ready to mix. Two to three room-temperature feeds restore the yeast activity that cold storage suppresses.
This is the bridge between the weekly routine and actual bread. Say you’re baking Saturday morning and need 200 grams of ripe starter:
- Thursday evening: pull the starter from the fridge, let it warm 1–2 hours, feed 1:1:1 (30g/30g/30g). Leave on the counter overnight.
- Friday morning: it should be bubbly and risen. Discard to 30g, feed 1:1:1 again.
- Friday evening: discard to 40g, feed 80g flour + 80g water (1:2:2). This builds ~200g total — enough for the recipe plus a spoonful to keep.
- Saturday morning: the build has peaked. Mix your dough, keep 30g of the leftover, feed it, and return it to the fridge.
That Friday-evening build feed is doing double duty: it’s both a feeding and your levain — the offshoot starter mixed specifically for one bake. Some bakers build the levain separately with different flour (a little whole wheat or rye for flavor), which is a nice upgrade once the basic rhythm feels automatic.
The three schedules at a glance
| Schedule | Daily counter | Weekly fridge | Pre-bake build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Room temp | Refrigerator | Fridge → counter |
| Feed frequency | 1–2× daily | 1× weekly | 3 feeds over 36 hrs |
| Typical ratio | 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 | 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 | 1:1:1, then 1:2:2 |
| Flour per week | ~700–1400 g | ~60–120 g | ~250 g (build week) |
| Bake-ready lag | 0–6 hours | 24–36 hours | — (this IS the prep) |
| Best for | Daily bakers | 1–4 loaves/month | Weekend bake days |
Sourdough Starter Feeding Schedule: Sample Weeks
Whichever schedule you choose, anchor it to something you already do — morning coffee, Sunday meal prep, or the evening news — because a schedule you remember beats a theoretically perfect one you forget. Below are three copy-paste weeks; pick one, run it for a month, and adjust the timing to your kitchen’s temperature.
Daily counter week (1:2:2, 70°F kitchen): Mon–Sun, 7:30 AM and 7:30 PM — discard to 25g, feed 50g flour + 50g water. Bake any day: scoop what you need at peak, feed the remainder as usual. Sunday evening feed can be slightly larger if Monday is bake day.
Weekly fridge week: Sunday 10 AM — the five-minute feed described above, then back in the fridge. Monday–Saturday: nothing. The jar sits there, quietly alive. If a thin layer of hooch forms by Friday, that’s normal — it’s just hungry, not dying.
Pre-bake week (baking Saturday): Sunday — normal weekly fridge feed. Thursday 8 PM — revival feed 1:1:1, counter overnight. Friday 8 AM — feed 1:1:1. Friday 8 PM — build feed 1:2:2 (40g/80g/80g). Saturday 7 AM — mix dough. Saturday evening — feed the kept spoonful, back to the fridge.
Notice how the pre-bake build layers onto the weekly routine — they’re designed to combine. The daily routine stands alone.
Adjusting for Temperature and Seasons
Warm kitchens (above 75°F/24°C) need bigger ratios or more frequent feeds, since fermentation can run twice as fast as at 68°F; cold kitchens (below 65°F/18°C) need smaller ratios or patience, since a 1:1:1 feed may take 10+ hours to peak. Watch the starter, not the calendar — peak behavior is the only clock that matters.
Portland gives me both extremes: 85°F August afternoons and 62°F January mornings, sometimes in the same week thanks to my drafty windows. In summer, my daily routine shifts from 1:2:2 to 1:5:5 so feeds survive the workday; in winter, I drop back to 1:1:1 and give everything an extra few hours.
Fridge storage smooths all of this out — the refrigerator is 38°F year-round, which is precisely why the weekly routine is so forgiving. If your schedule keeps falling apart in summer heat, the answer usually isn’t more discipline; it’s a bigger ratio or a colder home for the jar. Temperature control is half of starter management, as Leo emphasizes: even different spots in the same kitchen can vary enough to change your timing.
And if you’ve fallen off the schedule entirely — three weeks, a month, that dark hooch staring at you — don’t start over. My revival guide brings neglected starters back in 3–5 days.
FAQ
How often should I feed my sourdough starter?
If it lives at room temperature: once or twice daily. If it lives in the fridge: once a week. Match the frequency to the temperature — warm and fast means feed more often; cold and slow means feed less.
Can I switch from daily feeding to weekly fridge storage?
Yes. Give your starter one normal room-temperature feed, let it rise for 2–3 hours, then refrigerate. Start the weekly Sunday feed from there. Only do this with a mature starter (at least 3–4 weeks old) — young cultures need daily feeds.
What time of day should I feed my starter?
Whenever you’ll remember consistently. Morning feeds suit evening bakers (starter peaks by dinner); evening feeds suit morning bakers (starter peaks by breakfast). Consistency matters more than the hour.
Do I need to feed my starter if I’m not baking?
Yes, but minimally: the weekly fridge feed covers it. A mature starter can actually survive several unfed weeks in the fridge, but its vigor fades — you’ll spend days reviving what one weekly feed would have preserved.
How do I fit feeding into a 9-to-5 workday?
Use the weekly fridge routine plus the pre-bake build: five minutes on Sunday, then Thursday/Friday evening feeds before a Saturday bake. No weekday morning feeds required. The schedule in this guide’s sample week was designed exactly for this.
Leave a Reply