Re: Proofing on a heating pad

On 2022-03-07 12:41 p.m., bob prohaska wrote:
> Lately I've been doing the final rise for sourdough bread
> on a Sunbeam therapeutic heating pad. By my measurements,
> it's too hot, but the results so far have been excellent.
> I'm wondering if others have tried it, and to what effect.
> 
> The recipe is:
> 
> 200 g whole wheat flour
> 200 g white bread flour
> 210 g hot (steaming) water
> blend flour and water to lumpy mass
> cover and keep warm (100 F) 30 min.
> add 200 g starter (100% hydration)
> mix till smooth
> add ~15 g salt
> mix at least till bowl cleans up
> cover and keep warm (100 F) 30 min
> stretch and fold
> cover and keep warm (100 F) 39 min
> stretch, fold and form loaf
> place in covered, oiled Corningware dish
> 
> Place Corningware directly on heating pad
> with temp probe between dish and pad, on low.
> Cover pad and dish with inverted cardboard box.
> 
> refresh starter and place on pad under box
> 
> Set timer to 5.5 hours, give or take. I use the
> activity of the starter as a gauge of progress.
> The temp probe starts out around 115 F or so,
> very slowly rising to an indicated ~135 F by bake
> time. The starter has to be stirred down at least
> twice to control overflow, volume gain 4-5X.
> 
> The room temp has been around 60-62 F for the batches
> so far. Presumably the temp will rise as the season
> advances.
> 
> By all I've read, 135 is too hot, but the yeast seems
> to do just fine. I've checked the thermometer (Taylor
> remote-probe oven thermometer/timer) against boiling
> water and ice, it's off by no more than 2 F. Raising
> the bread and temp probe on a cooling rack lowers the
> indicated temperature about 10 F and reduces blow.
> 
> Bake is 30 min covered at 350 F, 15 min more uncovered.
> Nothing special, oven preheated ~5 min.
> 
> The starter is a mongrel. It came from Bario Bread in
> Tucson AZ but lost activity when I tried incubating it
> during the past summer at ambient (80 F) temp. A gram
> or so of commercial (Red Star) yeast revived it and it's
> not been tampered with for at least six months, or about
> 24 refresh cycles. It never was particularly sour and
> hasn't changed to my nose or palate. The starter, on its
> own, smells faintly like latex paint.
> 
> I anticipate that as the summer progresses the room temp
> and so the proof temp will continue to rise and so a bit
> concerned about how hot is too hot.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and any thoughts.
> 
> bob prohaska
> 
> 
>   
My immediate thoughts are that the hydration is low at 62%, the salt is 
high at 3% and the baking temperature is very low.
Graham