The difference in Sourdough Starter feeding ratios
Have you even wondered what the difference is between sourdough starters that are fed
1:1:1
Vs
1:5:5
Vs
1:1:½
And why sourdough bakers like me don’t just stick with one way of feeding our sourdough starters?
Well, that’s because different starters are useful for many different sourdough baking scenarios.
Bakers might have preference —because there are pros and cons
Let’s get into it….
✨ Starter fed at 1:1:1 looks like this:
| Starter | Flour | Water |
| 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 100g | 100g | 100g |
☝️Otherwise known as a starter fed at 100% hydration (aka a liquid starter) because flour amount = water amount
This is your control —a baseline metric, because it you are feeding the starter equal parts starter, flour, water.
Once you know how long your starter will come to peak when fed at 1:1:1 —you have a baseline understanding on your timeline.
For example, I know that when I feed my starter at 1:1:1, my starter comes to peak at 3-4hrs.
✨ Starters fed at 1:5:5 looks like this:
| Starter | Flour | Water |
| 1 | 5 | 5 |
| 100g | 500g | 500g |
Starters fed like this ☝️, is still a 100% hydration starter because the amount of flour = the amount of water. The only difference is that we are scaling up so we get more starter.
✨ Starters fed at 1:1:½ (a stiff starter) looks like this:
| Starter | Flour | Water |
| 1 | 1 | ½ |
| 100g | 100g | 50g |
Starters fed like this ☝️are called stiff starters.
Lots of benefits here —mainly being that it takes longer to come to peak and will stay at peak longer.
Sometimes I maintain my main starter this way so I can get away with feeding it every 2-3 days instead of everyday.
IMPORTANT
With all of these ratios, it’s important to remember that hydration ratios are ALWAYS in relation to the FLOUR —NOT the sum.
For example
Let’s say you have a feeding that looks like this:
50g starter
+ 100g flour
+ 100g water
= 250g new starter
This is a feeding ratio of 1:2:2 and the hydration ratio is 100% —water to flour, not water to the total.
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