Starter Maintenance
It's Alive! Now What?
Now that you have an established starter, it's important to keep it alive! Starter is a lot like a low-maintenance pet. If you keep it between 78 and 85 degrees, it must be fed at least once every 48 hours, but ideally, once every 24. Some people even like to feed it two times in a 24 hour period in preparation of using it in a recipe.
If you plan to bake once per week or less, I recommend keeping your starter in the fridge. You will remove it 24-48 hours prior to baking with it, and feed it once or twice, keeping it at the warmer temp, then place it back in the fridge after using it in a recipe.
More Important Information
Anytime your starter is at room temp or warmer, it must be fed every 24-48 hours. If you want to bake with it, it must be at peak rise, which occurs approximately 4-8 hours after being fed, and can be gauged visually. Mark the level of fullness of the jar after feeding, and once the starter in the jar has doubled, it's ready to use. If it has fallen again after doubling, you've waited too long. Perhaps this goes without saying, but if you're baking with the starter, you don't need to "discard", since you've already used up a portion of the contents of the jar. If you ever use up the entirety of the jar contents, simply refer to the instructions on Wet Start.
Maintenance Feeds
Stir jar contents, discard half into fridge jar.
Add twice as much flour as starter into the jar. This does not need to be precise, you can visually gauge how much you need to add.
Add water, one tablespoon at a time, until the contents reach the consistency of extremely thick, wet, muffin batter. It should be almost too thick to stir, but there shouldn't be any dry patches of flour either.
Get Baking!
Proceed to Recipes to make your first loaf.