Thought I’d share a technique I just used to create a sourdough starter with my Anova Sous Vide.
I came across a recipe for making a sourdough starter from scratch, but one key element is that the starter must proof between 80-85 degrees. Given that it’s winter right now and my home temp is set to 68 degrees, providing the warm environment suitable for proper fermentation is challenging.
Enter my sous vide solution.
By following the recipe instructions (which requires placing the sourdough starter in a glass jar) and placing the glass jar in an 85-degree sous vide controlled warm bath, the fermentation took place exactly as described in the recipe.
The attached pic shows the fermentation process at about 20 hours after initially mixing the ingredients together (flour and water, how simple is that?) and then placing the jar in the sous vide bath. The fermentation is nice and bubbly as it should be.
I hope others find this useful!
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Clever use of pot within a pot. I might just give this a try.
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Thanks John! I had a bit of a challenge placing the jar in the sous vide water. When I filled the large pot with enough water for the Anova device to function properly, the water level was too high for the jar. (The jar starting floating.) So I placed a heavy square glass receptacle in the water, then placed the jar into the square receptacle. I then filled the inside of the square receptacle with just enough water to allow for better heat transfer to the glass jar, bur low enough so the jar would not float. The water temp outside and inside the square receptacle was 85 degrees, which worked perfectly.
I tried this using almond flour and probiotics (to make a keto-friendly sourdough) - it was actually too bitter. And, yes, I need to make additional attempts one day. 
Making a ketogenic friendly sourdough would be pretty damn awesome.
I just used my covered vessel and had the starter floating in a dish within it - the high humidity inside the vessel gave the priobiotics all of the moisture that they needed. (obviously, for standard sourdough, it’s your yeast that’s the active culture)
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look on King Arthur flour web site, they have options for gluten free sourdough starters
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Umm. Thanks but ketogenic does not mean “designed for celiacs”. Ketogenic diets are converting your metabolism from using carbohydrates (glucose) for energy to using fat (which the liver turns into ketones) for energy.
As such, you need low carb alternatives to flour (such as almond flour). Actually, gluten may actually be an option - need to do the math on the nutrients in that - possibly combining that with oat fibre may be a potential fit.
I can make just about anything, but a BREAD BAKER I am not! Since covid hit I have been working on a sour dough starter. Two nights ago it occurred to me that I could use my Anova. Thanks to all for confirming my suspensions. So very helpful. Now if I can only actually bake a loaf… 
