I am new to the Breadtopia site! I ordered your sourdough starter and within a few days made the Sourdough Spelt bread. I followed your video directions and the result was a beautiful and tasty loaf of bread. It has been two days since I fed the starter so I wonder whether I need to do it again if I am going to start the bread making process today. I have sufficient starter for the 1/4 cup so I think it is not necessary to feed it today. Am I correct?
If your starter was fed before you put it in the refrigerator, and by its growth, you can see that it didn’t consume much of its food due to the dormancy-inducing cold…then you might take it out of the cold and observe a robust growth as it warms up (2-3x where you put your rubberband if that is something you do).
If this is the case, then I personally would use it without feeding. Other people probably would say they would prefer to discard and feed even in this scenario.
And if your starter grew a lot since you fed it, and then fell and/or got liquid on top, I wouldn’t use it without another feeding first. You can take 1-2 Tablespoons of your starter, feed it, and wait for it to double or triple and use that. Or you can feed your entire supply and plan for sourdough pancakes or something similar with the excess you end up with.
There are so many ways to do this, and to deal with your unused portions. Definitely read here for more.