Hi Cindy! The cool (and tricky) thing is there is no right or wrong answer here. You can may keep as much or as little starter as you want. Some people keep as little as 25 or 50 grams of starter at one time, and then build it up when they want to make something. I like keeping about 1 cup of starter at any given time (I usually feed 100 grams of starter with 100 grams flour and 100 grams water) because then when I divide the discard out I have about a 1/2 cup of discard to use for discard recipes). And yes, you will discard and then feed and use it when it is active. You can make up whatever “rules” you want to make it easier for you. So you can say ” I will keep 50 grams or100 grams”, or “I will divide my starter in half when I feed it”. Some people like to keep less on hand because they don’t make many discard recipes, and some people like to keep more on hand because they like using the discard. As long as you feed your starter with at least as much as you have, its ok with whatever number you choose. You can always feed your starter more (so you can take 10 grams of starter and feed it with 500 grams of flour and water) but you never want to feed less than what you have (so if you have 100 grams of starter you need to feed it at least 100 grams of flour and water, never anything less). Does that make sense?

It is easy to feel overwhelmed! It is so easy that there are multiple “right ways” to do it, which leads to everyone knowing best! The best thing to do is stick to ONE THING at a time! You’ve got this! Let me know if you have any questions!