Now that your starter is awake, it’s ready to grow and become your baking buddy for life. With a little care, your sourdough starter will stay strong, active, and ready to bake delicious loaves, pizza dough, and more.
Once you've followed the steps below, fed your starter and it has doubled in size, you're ready to bake.
If you purchased a kit, head over to our step by step instuctions for your wheat/grain based guide or our gluten-free instructions.
Dont forget to check out the DMG calculator and beginner recipes
Feeding Your Starter: The Basics
Once your starter is active (bubbly and rising), you’ll need feed it before you bake. To maintain your new baking buddy for future bakes you'll also need to feed it daily (if kept at room temperature) or once a week (if stored in the fridge).
Show your starter some love; regular feeding keeps the wild yeast and bacteria balanced, healthy, and ready to ferment.
Wheat starters: feed it with quality, high-protein baker’s flour. If you don’t have high-protein baker’s flour on hand, Dough My God suggests either Lighthouse Bread and Pizza Flour or Laucke Wallaby Bakers Flour, available at Coles, Woolworths, or IGA. This will get you out of a spot of trouble and honestly works. But if you want to really take your bake up a notch, go for the stronger flour 💪.
Rye starters: Stick with wholegrain rye flour to keep your culture strong and happy. One consideration with wholegrain flour, is that the bran absorbs water more readily than a refined flour. Adjust the ratio from the instructions below to 1:1:1.2 (1 part statrter, 1 part flour and 1.2 parts water), adding slightly more water than you would with a refined flour. Rye ferments more quickly than wheat, so don’t be surprised if your starter looks extra lively after a feed.
Spelt Starter if you can stick with a good organic spelt flour. Similar to the instructions above for rye, if you are using wholegrain flour, adjust the ratio very slightly to account for the spelt bran in the mix. Adjust the ratio from the instructions below to 1:1:1.2 (1 part statrter, 1 part flour and 1.2 parts water), adding slightly more water than you would with a refined flour.
Gluten Free Starter stick with either a good quality organic brown rice flour, or depending on your coeliac status, our gluten free flours by Wild Sourdough to feed your starter. Both will work well and keep your gluten free starter thriving.
Daily Feed (Room Temperature)
If you bake often, keep your starter on the bench and feed it every 24 hours.
- Discard about half of the starter (reserve this for discard recipes).
- Feed your wheat/spelt with equal weights of starter, flour, and water (e.g., 50 g starter + 50 g flour + 50 g water for a 1:1:1 ratio).
- Feed your rye with 5 parts wholegrain flour to 6 parts water by weight. (e.g., 50 g starter + 50 g flour + 60 g water for a 1:1:1.2 ratio).
- Feed your gluten free with equal weights of starter, flour, and water (e.g., 50 g starter + 50 g flour + 50 g water for a 1:1:1 ratio). You can add ever so slightly less water with the gluten free starter to have it behave a little more like other grain flours.
- Mix until the consistency of smooth peanut butter, cover loosely, and let ferment at room temperature.
Weekly Feed (Fridge Storage)
If you're not baking often, keep the starter in the fridge.
- Take it out once a week.
- Let it come to room temperature.
- Discard half and feed as described above.
- Let it sit out for a few hours after feeding, coming to, or close to its peak rise with a noticable amount of large bubbles.
- Return to the fridge for storage.
Gluten free: It's best to freeze your GF starter if you arent baking on a weekly basis. Anything longer than a week in the fridge increases the chance of contamination, the bane of every baker.
Ideal Conditions
- Keep your starter in a warm spot (24–27 °C) when fermenting.
- Avoid direct sunlight or areas with strong temperature fluctuations.
- Use filtered water where possible.
Tools That Help
- Mason jar or glass container (easy to clean and see bubbles).
- Digital scale (for accurate feeding ratios).
- Spoon or spatula for mixing.
- Rubber band to track the rise after feeding.
- Stick on thermometer not critical but very useful to monitor temperature
When Is It Ready to Bake?
Your starter is ready to bake when:
- It has doubled in size 4–6 hours after feeding.
- It’s bubbly and smells pleasantly yeasty and/or sour.
- A small spoonful floats in water (the float test).
Quick Tips
- Keep a backup starter in the freezer.
- Always use clean utensils to avoid contamination.
- If you see “hooch” (dark liquid) on top, stir it back in or pour it off, then feed.
- If your starter smells foul (like rotten eggs or mold), discard and start fresh with your backup.
Pro Tip: Your starter will get better with time as it adjusts to your environment. Many bakers say a starter hits its peak strength around weeks 2–3, so don’t worry if early bakes are a little slow or flat at first — it’s all part of the journey!
Always keep a small backup in the freezer that can be revived - it's the yeast you can do to prevent a starter disaster!
