Feed The Beast
Feeding a sourdough starter shouldn’t be confusing — especially when your starter is designed to be simple, resilient, and easy to maintain. At Crumb, we use a dough-style starter rather than a liquid one. This means:
It lives in the fridge
It only needs feeding once a week
It uses precise grams of flour and water
It lasts forever with very little maintenance
Below is the complete guide to feeding and caring for your starter at home using the Crumb method.
Before You Begin: Understanding Your Dough Starter
Our starter is intentionally thick, not runny. It behaves differently from the bubbly liquid starters, and that’s a good thing. Dough starters:
Stay stronger for longer
Need far less feeding
Are easy for beginners
Produce consistent, reliable loaves
Your job is simply to give it flour and water at the right times — and let it do the rest.
Your First Feed (Activating Your Starter)
When your starter arrives, it’s in a calm, dormant state. Before baking your first loaf, you’ll need to give it a full feed to wake it up.
How to activate your starter:
Add 200g strong white flour
Add 100g water
Mix well using a knife or spoon
Bring together into a firm dough ball using your hands
Place it back in its container
Refrigerate overnight
It will be ready to use the next day — or anytime within the next week.
Feeding Your Starter After Baking
Every time you bake the Love Crumb recipe, you will use 300g of starter in your dough.
After removing this amount, feed your starter immediately so it stays healthy and ready for your next bake.
To refresh after baking:
Add 200g flour
Add 100g water
Mix and form into a dough ball
Return it to the fridge
That’s it. No waiting, no room-temperature rituals, no complex ratios.
Your starter stays powerful because it’s refreshed straight away and stored safely in the fridge.
Weekly Feeding (If You’re Not Baking)
Even if you skip baking for a while, your starter still needs food. Once a week is ideal.
If you haven’t baked for a week:
Remove (or discard) 300g of starter
Replace it with 200g flour + 100g water
Mix into a dough ball and refrigerate
This keeps the wild yeasts nourished and active.
Forgetting occasionally isn’t disastrous — the starter is incredibly robust — but weekly feeding is the sweet spot.
What a Healthy Love Crumb Starter Looks Like
Because it’s dough-based, your starter will not be bubbly and frothy like liquid cultures. Instead, expect:
A firm, elastic texture
Gentle puffing after feeding
A clean, slightly tangy aroma
Tiny internal air bubbles
A smooth, pale surface
This is exactly how a dough starter should be.
Common Questions & Troubleshooting
My starter looks stiff — is that right?
Yes. It’s supposed to be a dough ball, not a liquid.
It doesn’t seem to rise much after feeding.
Dough starters rise subtly. A slight softening and gentle expansion are normal.
It smells sharp or acidic.
It’s just hungry — give it a fresh feed (200g flour + 100g water).
I forgot to feed it for two or three weeks. Can I save it?
Absolutely. Give it a full feed and refrigerate overnight. It will reset and come back to life.
Do I need to feed before every bake?
No — only the very first time. After that, the starter stays primed in the fridge.
How to Store Your Starter
Your starter should always live in the fridge. This keeps the fermentation slow, controlled, and stable — making maintenance incredibly easy. There’s no need to keep it on the counter unless you’re feeding it, mixing it, or preparing it for baking.