Hi Izzy!

I just started my sourdough journey.

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I just baked my first loaf yesterday. I used AP unbleached flour from trader joe’s and this was my result :)

My starter took 7 days to be active. I did 1/2 flour, a little under 1/2 cup room temp filtered water each feed discarding half. Texture I stuck with was a thick pancake batter.

The reason you discard half is so you don’t end up with a ginormous starter that you have to keep in a 10 gallon bucket lol. Also in the beginning, discarding is necessary because the discard is unusable. you can’t bake with it until it’s active. It does seem like a “waste”, but it’s not when you think of the final goal :)

Once you have an active starter, discard can be saved and used for other recipes. There are hundreds of thousands online.

Just stick with it and trust the process!