Starter Warmer?
Hey everyone,
Does anyone use a sourdough warmer? Temp can fluctuate in my house and it usually is kinda low especially when winter comes. I was wondering if anyone uses a starter warmer device of some sort to help keep your starter even temp?
7 replies
I like to put my starter in the oven with the light turned on in the winter. Sometimes with the door cracked open depending on how hot the bulb gets
The light is enough to keep it warm? Right now I have a very unscientific way of warming my oven to its lowest temp (170F), letting it cool then putting my starter in there to keep it consistently warm.
Takes forever and it uses the whole oven if course so we have to take it back out when I need to cook something. I'm looking for something I could use so I don't have to occupy the oven anymore.
Yeah, at least in my oven it's still an incandescent bulb, used mine recently to speed up drying, top of the fridge is going to be warmer as well.
That said, I've just kinda rolled with the colder kitchen recently, takes longer but I tend to do linger proofs anyhow. I've had good luck with a heating pad on top of the tub or a box for times I want something in a day.
I use the Brod & Taylor proofing cabinet (which is also a slow cooker) for my starter and the dough. I find that getting rid of the temperature variable really helps me a lot. When temperature is consistent you can more easily get a feel for how active the starter is. Otherwise it could always be slower or more active or the temperature just lower or higher.
I'll look into that, thanks! And yeah, the consistency is what I'm missing right now due to the fluctuations.
Well it's more often too warm than too cold here, so what I use to keep the starter stable is the refrigerator; the house is a proofing box so when I'm reviving it, the countertop. But 5 years after we moved in here, I realized my oven has a PROOF setting. Which seems to simply turn the light on, lol.
Lol amazing. I'll actually have to check if mine does. I had no idea that was a thing.