There are a lot of things the new baker may observe about long time bakers and their various practices which a newby may find a bit odd.

I’m one of those people who have arrived at a number of things unwillingly. For example, I used to think that pre fermentation was a bit of a wank, and yet over the years it has become central to my breadmaking practice. In a similar vein, I thought that I could make great bread without refrigeration, in my quest to get as ‘off grid’ as I could, but it turned out that refrigeration was indeed an essential part of the baker’s kit, just like an oven.

Until recently, I would have put another piece of equipment into the ‘optional’ category, and that is the proofer. I’ve always thought that for most home bakers, a warm window sill is enough to get your dough moving in cooler weather. As I live in Australia, cold weather is almost an afterthought, at least it is when you live on the east coast, which is where most of us do live. However, if you live inland any distance, or further south, cold winters are a fact of life. And lately I’ve had a lot of chats with people scattered all over the country, and the issue everyone is experiencing is common - dough doesn’t rise as quickly or as well in winter.

It coincides with my own thought patterns as I bake through the winter months. Temperature control is central to my process. I need the ability to warm things up or cool them down at will. I like to be able to time things to suit a daily or weekly rhythm, and refrigeration provides a me with a kind of pause button. It allows me to operate my system for maximum flexibility in all weather. Likewise, the ability to warm things up is important. Getting sponges (pre ferments) going, giving dough a bit of a kick along, or warming and softening shaped dough before baking - all these things cannot be done without a proofer.

I teach both home bakers and professionals. Pro bakers all need some sort of proofing system. But home bakers can mostly get by without one - by simply utilising a warm place. However, as I speak to regular home bakers, I am learning that like me, they need control over their process, and a proofer is a very useful part of gaining control.

For us, baking bread regularly is not optional. We need to bake because:

to buy sourdough from the supermarket is too expensive.
commercial sourdough doesn’t agree with our metabolism.
we are trying to live authentically.
it clears our head from the day to day guff of life.
it’s a kind of meditation,
only our home made bread tastes the way it does.
the simple act of feeding ourselves and our families with something we made from scratch provides all of us with something beyond nourishment - it provides us with a kind of nutriment.
In short, for whatever reasons there are, we need to knead.

For these people, a proofer is, I believe, a necessity. But what, exactly, is a proofer? Put simply, it’s a temperature controlled box which also provides humidity. The ability to create steam is essential, as it stops your dough from crusting when it is warmed. The box needs to be able to create consistent temperatures of between 25C and 35C to be useful as a baker’s tool.

I’ve just built one from some waste plywood, some old fridge wire shelves and a slow cooker. It’s quite large, as I need to be able to proof up to 40 or so loaves at a time. I’ve made lots of proofers over the years - I’ve used old fridges as proofers - just by turning them off and putting a slow cooker down the bottom where the crisper used to be. When I did the Tour Down Under a few years back, I made one with a wooden box, a spirit burner and a saucepan of water.

You could make one very easily to warm up just a couple of loaves using some old styrofoam boxes, some gaff tape and a rice cooker. As long as it is large enough to put a shelf in that will hold a couple of loaves above your heating device, and can seal in the moisture, you will be on your way.

You can of course buy ready made proofers for home breadmaking online. I’m not a fan of these as they seem to be ridiculously expensive for what they actually do. Indeed, I’m not a fan of people buying more ‘stuff’ in general. However, I know many of you will be keen to invest in one of these so your home setup can be added to and finally ‘complete’. So for you, I suppose someone has to keep the economy ticking over, so go for it. These devices look like they will provide plenty of control and complexity, so this may well satisfy some urges in some.

And there will be plenty of you who will improvise. However, for those who can’t or are lacking the skill, I may well draw up some plans so you can make one easily. Watch this space.

I have a semi off grid micro bakery in Gloucester NSW. It’s based around a home made wood fired oven, a home made dough trough for mixing dough, and some really simple technology which I’ve created from scratch in order to make small volumes of sourdough bread reasonably efficiently. I hold monthly intensive weekend workshops for the general public in every aspect of sourdough breadmaking, and a few times a year I also open up for professionals to come and learn some new techniques and to experience the joys of low tech baking.

Why not come out and experience the beautiful Gloucester region of NSW one weekend and attend a workshop while you are here? It’s inspiring and fun, and you get to take home your own freshly baked loaf, as well as a bit of Papa, my own three decade old sourdough starter.

Weekend Sourdough Workshop