phk wrote:
> I'm new to this, so bear with me. Many of the starter suggestions list
> very precise starter temperatures. Yet sourdough starters have
> apparently been around for centuries, and I can't believe that earlier
> cultures had the conditions to maintain precise temperature control.
>
> I for one can't easily manage this, and the best storage place I have
> is around 72 degrees. There must be types of yeast that can handle
> this?

If you keep it somehow in a constant routine i. e. doing the same thing
over and over, the population will change and adopt to the higher
temperature. No problem. They are making sourdough in hotter climates
and industrial sourdough grow machines work with higher temperature -
with different creatures as normal traditional bakeries.

Your intestines are how warm? You have LB's growing in there.

So - your only problem is to figure out how much you have to feed it to
keep it happy at a higher temperature, so you don't kill it over time.

To keep things at a certain temperature came from maybe two reasons: To
achieve repeatable results and more knowledge about sourdough innards to
be more efficient. That's reflected in those data. That does not make it
wrong just because the knowledge was not available earlier. It's not
necessary to know a temperature scale for making sourdough bread.

If you "get the temperature wrong", you still can make good bread.

You can bet that folks doing sourdough earlier without digital
thermometers gathered enough experience over time to do it right.

Anyway....

Samartha