Have you fed your starter this week?

My sister has so many freaking starters littering the apartment. She has made more sourdough starters than actual loafs of bread 😬

I started in my 20s. I was poor as fuck and sourdough pizza costs very little to make, the only ingredients were flour, tomato puree and cheese. If the corner shop had discounted meat at 22:55 I would sometimes get that to stick on top. Black pudding pizza is probably not something I will make now that I earn £26k but it wasn't terrible either.

Which makes sense since only people now in their 30s know what a tamagotchi is
- 80s baby. I had to make do with the knockoffs (the green cat one was a nano pet clone that worked perfectly and the octopets one was really fun except it was always freezing), because the official ones were sold out forever. I've had the two TamaGos on pause since last year haha. Tamagotchi Angel has been rereleased, but it seems kinda boring.
- They still make them! I just bought one a few years ago haha
  
  Hope it's still doing as good as OPs sourdough
- And 40s. Sincerely, 42yo elder millennial who had a generic tamagochi knockoff for a while back in olden times.

Sounds fun at first, intense period of initial fascination, actually really laborious, time-consuming, and not all that fun long-term.
Yeah, sounds about right.
- Someone recently gave me a culture, and it feels like a curse. I've kept them before and managed to escape... Here I am, a slave to bread once again.
  
  Can't you freeze and or dry it?
  
  I felt the same way with kefir grains
  
  You should read Sourdough.
- I really like grocery store kombucha, and I've had several opportunities to get a SCOBY from friends who make their own kombucha, but I never have because, well, this.

There's so such thing as starter "discard"! Add water, oil, sugar, salt, baking soda and you've got some vegan sourdough pancakes. Or use any of a number of other recipes --- but no sense in wasting it.
- Yeah, a lot of the instructions you find about it on the Internet really ought to be a lot more clear that the reason for getting rid of half of it when you feed it each day isn't because it's bad or something, but rather just because you don't want it to outgrow the container.
- I've been trying no-discard-micro-starters. I keep 8 g in the fridge, and build over a few days to bake. Not sure how viable it is long-term but it seems to be working so far. Would love anyone's input if they have more information about long-term viability.
  
  I don’t know about micro but I keep a conventional amount of starter in the fridge and have had it for 5+ years. If I’m out of a bread phase I take it out once every few months, let it come to temperature and feed it. When it gets bubbly and happy again I give it more flour and water till it’s thick and stick it back in the fridge. When my next bread phase kicks in I leave it out of the fridge for a day, feed it again and then use it like normal (once I see it can double in size). Very little waste this way and super-low effort.
  I’ve also dehydrated strips of extra-thick starter and have successfully reanimated them years later (just did it recently with 4+ year dehydrated starter in fact).
  
  I've been making a loaf every week +/- since March of 2020 with the wild start I cultivated. I don't understand the idea of discarding part of the colony. I have maintained the same colony in a little 12oz jar this entire time.
  Pull out ~half of the colony and use it to make bread.
  Add 4 Tbsp flour and 2 Tbsp water into the jar, mix.
  Let it sit for a few hours (Or don't)
  Put the jar in the fridge until you are ready to make a new loaf.
  If you feel like it, or you skipped step 3, pull the jar out of the fridge and let it sit out for a few hours.
  Go to step 1.
  That's it. So simple, no waste.
- Wait isn't all pancake batter vegan?
  
  Pancake traditionally contains egg. Actually, eggs are the main ingredient.
- For a while I was just dumping my discard into a hot oiled pan to make a nice little pancake. Some scallions, sesame seeds and teriyaki sauce for toppings. It's a lot to eat on the regular though.
  
  Oh, I tried that once or twice --- I'll have to try it again!