My method:

Get 2/3-3/4 cup starter from the fridge — let stand in a covered bowl until it’s room temp (anywhere from 1 hr to whenever I remember that I have a bowl waiting for me)
Add 4 handfuls flour (I figure this is probably about 2 cups) + water to wet everything, stirring with a wooden spoon.
Leave covered with plastic again until I remember it — anywhere from 3-4 hours to overnight
Add 4 more handfuls flour, ~2 teaspoons salt, more water to wet everything, stir again with a wooden spoon
Leave covered with plastic again until doubled.
Cut in half. No fancy shaping, just wet my hands with water and gather up the outside to seal seams — freeform is easiest for me — it may become a batard or a baguette or boule… Put on parchment, spray, plastic.
Let rise until almost double. Heat oven to 500 degrees. Go 10-15 minutes past when the oven beeps to make sure the temps are stabilized.
Slide dough, parchment and all, onto heated quarry tiles. Spray all over the oven with water, careful not to spray the light bulb. I do this a couple of times more every 5 minutes or so depending on mood, or not at all.
Leave it in the oven until I smell baked bread — 35 minutes or so?
Here’s where I get scientific — stick a thermometer on bottom of bread, if it’s 190 or so, it’s done.
The hardest part is convincing the kids that we have to WAIT for bread to cool completely, on a rack, before we slice and eat. Sigh.

When the starter looks like it’s down to 1 cup or so, add about 2 cups more flour, water to wet it, leave on the counter until visibly ALIVE and double, then I put it back in the fridge. If it looks like it will pop out of the glass and shatter, I stir it down again the next day. By then it has calmed down a bit and will stay pretty much where it is volume-wise until I use it again.

oh, and i use whole wheat flour except for the feeding of the starter, which I often do half-half. I’ve used regular whole wheat flour, fresh-ground whole wheat, white whole wheat, etc. One of these days I’ll try sprouted grain.