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Any of you who has ever made bread will have some sense that temperature is fundamental to controlling the fermentation process. Sourdough culture — yeast and bacteria — likes a temperature of about 25-27ºC.
To keep the dough warm (but not too warm) I use a cheap seed heating mat under a wire rack, and then wrap the dough container in a light blanket. This is an uber-micro-bakery after all and in the winter my kitchen is cold!
Here’s a container of dough for 12 loaves of Merton Simple towards the end of bulk fermentation.
By the way, if you making sourdough but are not monitoring the temperature of the dough, you are going to struggle to make well-proved and beautiful looking bread.
I was making sourdough for nearly 10 years before I started monitoring dough temperature and up to that point it was mysteriously hit and miss.
Slow. Learner.
