Controlling the temperature is also extremely helpful once you start making bread. SourHouse, which came out with the starter-coddling Goldie a few years back, just released the DoughBed ($280), a heated, happy place for dough to rise, if you can afford that hefty price. Sourdough loaves often have two separate fermentation periods. The first, “bulk fermentation,” is where the dough rises and develops flavors. Later, after a bit of shaping, it proofs in a vessel—often a basket—that helps it rise and ferment a bit more while formed in the shape of the loaf to come.
The DoughBed is a pill-shaped glass bowl that fits over a heating pad and under an insulated cork lid. It helps keep bulk fermentation on track by holding the dough between 75 and 82 degrees. The bowl’s long, flat bottom allows for more dough to be as close as possible to the heat. I usually do bulk fermentation in an eight-quart Cambro container, at which point it’s either at the mercy of the ambient temperature in my house or I tuck it into that warm spot next to my fridge. I call it ready when it is notably risen and is both a bit smoothed out and bubbly. If you like that readiness on more of a schedule, the DoughBed’s consistent temperature helps get the dough where you want it, when you want it. If you are on a schedule, you’ll appreciate this predictability.
Of course, I put this stuff to the test, following Maurizio Leo’s starter-creation instructions and his beginner’s sourdough recipe. It really enveloped my life, becoming an oddly emotional roller coaster for someone like me who was not on the lookout for new hobbies.
Leo breaks bread making down into eight main steps, in addition to the daily care of your starter. There is a lot to learn for each part of the process. When you’re busy learning or getting better at a bunch of consecutive new steps, errors can compound, potentially not even presenting themselves immediately. Controlling a few variables helps keep you on the right path and I appreciated both the Sourdough Home and the DoughBed because they clearly helped keep things moving in the right direction. In the end, it was not bakery-quality bread I made, but it was surprisingly good and something I was happy to share. I have no doubt that using both helped make for a better final product.
It’s definitely possible to approximate the temperatures you’re looking for with these new devices by putting your starter in a warm spot in your home like on top of the fridge, next to the rice cooker, or, the herpetologist’s favorite, on top of a $13 reptile heating pad. (Hat tip to Paul Adams at America’s Test Kitchen who turned me on to that one!) If you can get the right temperature consistently using one of those options, go for it. But if you are new to the game, like the process, want to keep some uncertainty out of it, and are perhaps on a bit of a schedule, you might want to take a closer look at them. They will take some of the guesswork out of your baking and get you to better bread sooner.