GaryBishop's blog

I'm a cheapskate and an experimentalist so I'm always thinking of ways to cut corners. I wondered how well I could control temperature using a crockpot and a cheap controller.

So, I got the Inkbird C206T controller and used a rubber band to strap its sensor to a quart jar with 500g of water and my floating bluetooth thermometer inside. I filled the crockpot with enough water to match the water level in the jar, covered the whole thing with a "shower cap" and a small blanket. I set the controller for 43.5C. 

My reasoning is that the thermal transfer between the water outside and inside should be very efficient and the large mass of water should make the average temperature very stable.

My thermometer records the temperature every minute and compares very well with my ThermaPen's readings. Below I include a graph of the temperature readings over night while the room temperature varied from 20C/69F to 17C/63F. The X axis is minutes and the Y axis is degrees C. 

As you can see the temperature inside the jar is very stable around the 43.5C set point, varying only 0.6 degrees C. The default "swing" on the Inkbird is 0.3C which perfectly matches this result. 

I'm confident I can get very accurate and repeatable temperature control with this approach. 

When I get some time I want to evaluate the variation in the period of the cycles to see if the room temperature variations are detectable. 

I've been making variations on this loaf for years starting from this recipe from txfarmer. With my tiny pan I've been able to pick up the pace often baking every 2 or 3 days. 

I've now got something that I really enjoy. It is soft, sour, strong enough for thin slices, and tastes great. Besides all that it is easy to make. I've even quit using my mixer. 

You can get a live version of the Google Sheet here. The bold numbers are intended to be adjustable.

I mix it by hand in a bowl. Maybe 5 or 6 gentle folds at each interval.

Too sour for your taste? Just drop the amount of preferment, the other numbers will adjust.

Want to bake a larger loaf? Just set the flour to 0.2g per cubic centimeter. I bake in my 10x10x10 pullman pan without the lid because I like the domed top. You'll need to scale it down a bit if you want a flat top. It will easily scale to larger pans. 

Don't want to use sourdough at all? Just set the preferment to 0 and up the yeast to about 1%.

I'm using KAF starter and flours. I refresh my starter about every 2 weeks.