How does room temperature affect sourdough starter feeding schedule?
At 18 degrees Celsius, you might find that your starter needs to be fed less frequently than every 24 hours, perhaps every 36-48 hours depending on its activity. Conversely, at 28 degrees Celsius, it may require feeding every 12-24 hours, as the warmer temperature speeds up fermentation. For more detailed insights on how temperature affects your starter, check out Chapter 4 on Sourdough Starter in my book, which covers optimal feeding practices.
Answered by Hendrik, The Bread Code
From the book
As explained earlier the key to making great bread is a slow but not too slow fermentation. Enzymes require time to break down your dough. Taking all this into consideration, I try to aim for a fermentation time of around 8 to 12 hours. This seems to be the sweet spot for most of the flours that I have worked with. To achieve this, I use around 5 % of sourdough starter in summer times (temperatures around 25 °C (77 °F) in the kitchen). In winter times I opt for around 10 % up to 20 % sourdough starter (kitchen temperature around 20 °C (68 °F)). This allows me to use a sourdough starter that’s not in perfect condition. As explained earlier, your bread dough is essentially a gigantic starter. The low inoculation rate allows the starter to regrow inside your main dough into a desirable balance. Furthermore, the enzymes have enough time to break down the flour. This also allows me to skip the so-called autolysis step completely (more in the next section). This greatly simplifies the whole process.
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