Hello,

I’m trying to make sourdough bread starter and am having problems with keeping the temperature constant.

What do other people use for temperature control when leaving the starter overnight etc?

Looking for ideas!

Thanks all

There are a lot of techniques—place in oven with light on, place on or near heater vent, use a proof box with warm water.  My favorite is using a heating pad.  I made my starter in winter and didn’t use any of those things—it just takes it longer to get started, but it will still work.  I use a heating pad now when the house temperature is below 70 and I am raising bread.

Agreed, it works at most any temperature, it will just get things faster or slower.

The heating pad trick is helpful, thanks for sharing.

thanks for replies!

I have wondered about temperature for a while as during the second day the culture looks ok with air holes in it then after the third or so day it just goes to a sludge and looks decidedly dead.

Any thoughts?

I just got my starter going and am making my first sourdough loaf today.  What I noticed is that around day 3 there was a lot of activity in my liquid starter.  Then nothing for about 3 days.  Eventually I got tired of waiting and when I fed it I replaced 50% of the bread flour with dark rye flour.  This really got the starter going! The dark rye flour has a lot of wild yeast on it and it will give your starter a nice complexity.  Keep at it.  As long as there are bubbles something is happening!

Room temp should do the trick.
Bread flour is a must that’s with a protien of 4
Your mixture should be about 1/2 spring water amd 1/2 dough.
Spring water by the gal is only about 70 cents.
feed your starter every 24 hours 1/2 C water   1/2 C flour mix real good.
BREAD ALONE by Daniel Leader and Judith Blahnik is a super book.
As a side note learn about wheat berries ., gluten , flax , and wheat germ.
Also get a digital therometer with a cord and then the probe ( about $15 ) this is a great tool.
I make ” wheat water” by boiling berries for 1 hr and save excess water to use in bread.
I also put cooked berries in bread
Finnally my lasest trick is doing final rise in crock pot ( using therm) and then remove pot and bake bread in pot
20 min at 450 20 min at 400…great crust
Good luck..The more you do it the better it gets.
Lou