I’ve been a professional artisan baker for the last 5 years. I bake an array of sourdough in a wood fired Allan Scott brick oven. I bake as part of a local food coop, so we don’t have top of the line equipment for production. I have previously undergone a 22 hour process, in which I make a starter from a maintained culture, allow to ferment for for 18 hours. Then I mix my final dough with that starter, bulk ferment for 4 hours, then bake.
My problem being I bake in a space in which the temperature fluctuates dramatically from day to day and season to season, so I have to play with putting the starters in the cooler for x amount of time, then allowing them to rest and room temp for so long to achieve my desired level of activity.
long story short, I’m looking for a proofing unit that can maintain a temperature between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit so I can achieve the same level of activity throughout the seasons in a consistent environment... .. is there an existing machine that can do this for me?
MamaC, have you considered something like this?
https://www.theperfectloaf.com/?s=Retarder
I built a compact unit a couple of years ago and it accurately retard +/-2 degrees F. If you needed to warm things you could probably use a low wattage light or some other small heat source with a small 12v dc fan to move the air. I use a computer cooling fan in mine.
This would be a cheaper option. For commercial built units I have not experience.
Danny
I am assuming that you don't have a lot of money to spend for this. For our church we got a used "warmer" from a surplus restaurant supply company. It is 1200 watts max but will hold low temperature very well. It takes standard sheet pans so is very easy to load. I have used it for proofing dinner rolls and it worked very well. We use it at the church for pot luck dinners where folks bring warm food from home, or to hold items we cook for serving most of the time but it works well for proofing too. Ours came out of a school but was in very good shape, I think we paid $ 100 for it. Restaurant supply companies will know it as a warmer and not as a proofer.