When rehydrating Lilly, we always suggest using an unbleached premium bread flour (not all purpose) because of its higher protein percentage. Bleached flour has chlorine and will slowly start killing off the cultures in your starter. I personally use 'Dakota Maid Premium Bread Flour' but other brands like King Arthur work as well. If you can’t find either of those brands try to get one that has a 12% protein percentage or higher. 

The water you’re using matters!! If you’re using tap water (usually full of chlorine and other harsh chemicals) it will do the same thing as a bleached flour. Filtered waters like distilled or reverse osmosis are not beneficial either, because they don’t have the necessary minerals to help starter cultures thrive. So if you’re using those waters and aren’t seeing a lot of activity by Day 3, your cultures might have started to die off. I recommend using filtered or spring water, whenever possible.

If you are planning on baking with your starter daily, you’ll want to leave her in a locking lid sealed mason jar on the counter and feed her daily. I remove the seal to make sure built up gasses can escape during its doubling process. If you feed your starter and don’t end up pulling from it for a recipe, you’ll want to wait at least 12 hours to discard everything but 25% left in your jar to make room for another feed the next day. This is called “discarding”. You can use this “discard” or “inactive starter” in discard recipes, or can place it in another locking lid sealed jar in the fridge to save as a back up starter. (If you feed it, it becomes active starter). 

If you are only planning on using your starter once a week or even less, you’ll want to keep it in a locking lid sealed glass jar in the fridge, to prevent mold spores from growing. Once you’re ready to bake with her, I always suggest pulling her out the day before so you can feed her 2-3 times in a 36 hour period to make sure she’s nice and strong.

The water you’re using matters!! If you’re using tap water (usually full of chlorine and other harsh chemicals) it will do the same thing as a bleached flour. Filtered waters like distilled or reverse osmosis are not beneficial either, because they don’t have the necessary minerals to help starter cultures thrive. So if you’re using those waters and aren’t seeing a lot of activity by Day 3, your cultures might have started to die off. I recommend using filtered or spring water, whenever possible.

Discarding is simply removing extra starter contents in your active starter jar, when you don’t have enough room to feed your starter and have it double without overflowing. If you have a really large jar and would like to “bulk up” your starter, you can skip discarding for awhile and just continue feeding it. The only reason we discard is to ensure you have enough space in your jar, so do it at your own discretion.

YES! Discard is simply just inactive starter. So when you feed it a couple times out of the fridge, it will become a nice bubbly active starter again.