My Sourdough Starter Thrives in Its Own Little Terrarium (original) (raw)

I had a short-lived sourdough starter during COVID, but due to neglect and lack of knowledge, it died. A few years later, however, one bite of sourdough shakshuka focaccia from Radio Bakery sent me off to try again. And when the second attempt died within a week, I dove into research: Was it the type of flour I used? Is my container too small? Do I need to feed it more? Hours spent reading blogs and Reddit threads led me to understand how crucial temperature is when trying to create a mature starter. But in my prewar apartment with its unpredictable drafts and two roommates, where was I supposed to store this container of goo so it could live undisturbed and at the optimal temperature?

When I shared my sourdough woes with a friend who works at Bon Appétit, she recommended a product that had come across her desk. Sourhouse’s Goldie is a terrarium-esque temperature-controlled dome that keeps your starter at what the company calls the “‘Goldilocks Zone’ of 75 to 82F.” All I had to do was plug in the electric base to activate the auto warmer, pop a cooling puck into the freezer to use on the base if the dome environment is ever too hot (as indicated by a red light that turns on), place my jar on the base with my fed starter, and put the glass dome over it.

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It’s been five months of successfully keeping my starter alive, even through several winter storms when my apartment was at its coldest, and I attribute that to Goldie. I’ve noticed that my starter consistently rises and falls when kept in the optimum temperature range — a sign of strong and healthy fermentation. And I’m happy to say that, thanks to Goldie, I have been able to faithfully re-create that Radio Bakery focaccia.

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