Feeding & Hydration Cheat Sheet
Keep this one bookmarked. It's the two things you'll look up most: feeding ratios and hydration.
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About this cheat sheet
Feeding ratios and hydration both come down to weight, so a kitchen scale is the one tool this sheet assumes you own. A ratio such as 1:1:1 means equal weights of starter, flour and water. Hydration is the water weight divided by the flour weight, shown as a percentage, so 100 g of water with 100 g of flour is 100% hydration. Larger ratios feed less often because the starter has more food to work through.
A warm kitchen speeds everything up, and a South Florida counter can sit near 80°F. If your starter peaks and collapses before you can feed it, move to a larger ratio or keep it somewhere cooler. Write down the temperature along with the ratio, and after a week of notes you will know your jar's rhythm. Flour brands absorb water differently, and whole wheat drinks more than bread flour, so treat any hydration figure as a starting point.