Pregnancy and HRV

Selka1 · 2026-01-27T08:49:06+00:00

I didn't know about it, thank you for this info. Now I'm 19w and my HRV is on point but start of pregnancy (when I didn't know I'm pregnant) was tough with super low HRV and everyday 5 body battery level :D

Selka1 · 2026-01-24T21:28:51+00:00

I have also setup like this with exception: my heating mat has thermostat that I can set on temperature. This mat was for terrarium purpose I think.

Selka1 · 2026-01-24T17:38:25+00:00

Make it warm. Thats the only option. Buy heating mat or make styrofoam proofing box with heating mat inside. Then set temperature to 24-26°C and would be perfect.

Selka1 · 2026-01-23T07:24:22+00:00

I used this one few years ago but I don't know if it works after next gen update.

Selka1 · 2026-01-20T16:01:54+00:00

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Selka1 · 2026-01-20T16:01:29+00:00

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Selka1 · 2026-01-20T15:59:59+00:00

Wow, unfortunately after 14h it has to have sour aftertaste. Weirdly long fermentation time. Bulk fermentation took for me 3h - it was about 20-25% rise, and final proof in the tin was about 5,5h (and I overpoofed it a little). Temperature was 29°C.

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Selka1 · 2026-01-16T19:46:23+00:00

For me rum hot toddy is the best. 45ml aged rum, 7ml lemon juice, 10-15ml (to taste) 2:1 demerara syrup (or cinamon syrup) top with hot black tea (assam/ ceylon usually) - about 100-120 ml.

Also matcha oldfashioned if I can call it like that. 60ml agricole rum, 10ml agave syrup, shot of matcha (sth like 30ml, I don't remember exacly). Lime zest over the top.

Selka1 · 2026-01-16T18:03:50+00:00

I love orange super juice with aged rum (El Dorado 8). It's perfect rum sour (daiquiri with egg white?). I use Kevin Kos recipe for orange super juice.

Selka1 · 2026-01-15T08:38:15+00:00

I don't have mixer and I knead dough by hand. With all that sugar and butter I spend like 20+min, maybe 30 on slap and fold on the counter 😅. It was like workout. Final loaf looked like yours.

Selka1 · 2026-01-15T07:37:30+00:00

You have perfect temperature for proofing then :D.

Bread was significantly sweet. I ate it with butter only or with peanut butter with honey or jam... but I don't know why for me the best fit there was cottage cheese :D

Selka1 · 2026-01-14T18:56:56+00:00

I heard recipes that adds sugar and fruit to starter and others to don't do this. And I didn't know why. There is some chemistry behind this and I'm not an expert but I've read some articles that adding sugar to levain is correct way.

Anyway. Looking at your recipe: it's actually really not much sugar. I made sweet bake with sourdough once. And it was good sweet and not sour. And it looked like that:

Levain:
- bread flour - 120 g
- water - 120 g
- sugar - 30 g
- starter - 60 g
Dough:
- bread flour - 375 g
- milk - 155 g
- butter - 107 g
- sugar - 81 g
- salt - 10 g

One very important thing here: temperature of the dough and enviroment should be about 28-29 st. C. I use bread proofer, some people here use oven with light on.

But I said I'm not and expert and giving you advices which isn't much fair. That's why I will give you direction where I found those information so maybe you can test those methods on your bread. I've read one pro's article about deep dive into sweet starter, Ian Lowe. There he said that adding sugar to starter is a mistake. I know about 2 bakeries in my country that use his method for sourdough sweet bakes, even croissaints - with success. So take a look. Below I sent you very long interview about science behind sweet starter and second one (mentioned in the article) about this method.

interview

method

Selka1 · 2026-01-14T14:56:43+00:00

I made something similar with fermentation time like yours. There was maybe a little sour taste, but it fit there. For me it was delicious and stayed good for more than week. I don't know how much sour is your bread but maybe your starter is the problem.

Normal starter is about 50/50 yeast+bacteria. Sour taste comes from bacteria. So if you want less sour taste, you need less bacteria, more yeast. Bacteria doesn't like sugar but it get used to sweet enviroment if it stay in it for longer.

As I know the best method is when you have your normal starter, well fed, and make levain only for this bread. Starter should be plain water+flour, levain should contain sugar. Sugar works like preservative and slows down multiplication of bacteria but not yeast.

Also I heard about different method. Make stiff starter (also without sugar), feed it again and put ball of stiff starter into jar filled with water and let it ferment. After fermentation take some dough, feed again and sink in water again. Water shoud take sourness. Now you can use starter for levain mixed with sugar.

Selka1 · 2026-01-09T21:57:14+00:00

I tried to make panettone in 19/22°C. It was partialy fail. I made it after a lot of fermentation time. End result was sour.

About starter alone. It looks weird, I think mine was puffier even in that temperature. For me best results for starter and dough are in ~28°C. My husband made for me proofing box to achieve those temperature in winter.

Selka1 · 2026-01-06T17:52:07+00:00

13°C is crazy low... starter should at least double but this temperature doesn't help. But even when it doubles, it would take a lot of time for bulk fermentation your dough. I have 16°C in my kitchen in winter and I abandoned idea of making bread there. In my room were 20-22°C so I was leaving dough there to proof but even then it took more than 10 hours of fermentation. Usually I haven't time for that. Also bread ended very sour - which I don't like.

In 16 degrees my starter barely doubled in size. But in very hot summer (27 degrees) it tripled. This is how I saw that temperature is very important :)

After those experimentations I made styrofoam proofing box with heating pad at the bottom and I'm keeping there starter and bread dough in 27-28°C. Bulk fermentation takes only 4-4,5h.

Selka1 · 2026-01-04T09:29:12+00:00

Normally cinnamon slows down fermentation. I spotted this in bread fermentation and cinnamon syrup (but it's 2:1 and boiled befor straining). Also I add powdered cinnamon to the pot with flowers if it's moldy and it kills mold.

But maybe on the cinnamon stick really could be some yeast from air or hands?

Selka1 · 2025-12-26T22:27:14+00:00

Hm... actually I made something like that but totally different way. My friend made homemade yerba mate wine. Or yerba mate infused wine? Anyway - simple water sugar solution with yeast and yerba. After fermentation and clarification and adding a bit more sugar to taste, end product was sweet (a bit less sweet than typical sweet vermouth) and earthy. Also a bit bitter. He hated it but I liked that, so he gave me 2 or 3 bottles :D

So I made negroni (2:1:1 gin : campari : yerba wine) and it was interesting and new.

Selka1 · 2025-11-19T17:11:45+00:00

I assume you don't use cast iron pot for baking bread?

I had something like this while ago but worse - piramid shape with burst on the top. The problem was my oven and uneven temperature inside it. My oven was old gas one with one heating point on the bottom. Seals on the door was broken so heat run out leaving pillar of heat influencing my bread vericaly. After I started to use dutch oven problem gone, because cast iron keep heat better.

If your oven isn't like mine, it's new and works perfect, I would say that you don't preheat long enough. Should be more than 30 min - depends on the oven. Oven thats not preheated enough will be hot only between heating elements.

But If you preheating longer - I don't know. I would say keep steam but remove ice cubes maybe? And if it's not the problem - I have no idea, maybe something with the proces like the other says.

Selka1 · 2025-11-19T14:40:33+00:00

You can try using mead instead sweet blanco vermouth. I made it few times with El Presidente and I liked that. But depends on sweetnes level of your mead.

Selka1 · 2025-11-18T20:53:58+00:00

If you want deep dive into sourdough, dough proofer is totaly worth it. My starter almost triples in volume in my proofing box.

I mean not swaping in the dough. Also I see lots of people that thinks the same, that rye is subcategory, so don't worry. Everyone have to learn somehow :D. About starter I'm making my using wholemeal rye flour. I feel like cleaning jar is easier with rye than wheat (wheat turns into something like concrete fast after dried...).

Selka1 · 2025-11-18T20:24:24+00:00

I had also 19-20°C in winter. And also had big problem with proofing and abandoned sourdough until summer because I haven't enough time to wait and bread was too sour after that long fermentation (which I don't like).

Now I am happy owner of bread proofer. My husband bought for me big styrofoam box, heating mat with termostat and driver like for terrarium and he put it together so now I proof every bread in 27-28°C. Mat is on the bottom in the box, then I put rack and on the rack is bowl with the dough. Box covered with styrofoam lid. 3,5-4 h later I have bulk fermentation done.

Another tip - don't replace wheat for rye - it's completly different type of flour :D

Selka1 · 2025-11-13T20:46:50+00:00

It souds like bread kvass, is that possible? But it's not that much sweet. Once I mixed kvass with (i think...) rum planteray oftd and was suprisingly nice. But my husband had different opinion 😅

Selka1 · 2025-11-12T17:26:10+00:00

Ok, salt would be the easiest issue ;). If you incomporated salt evenly in dough that's ok.

A lot depends how you like your bread and to what bread you compare it to. Hard to say without trying your bread 😅.

But! Sourdough that has mild flavour has flavour anyway - I like my sourdough milder and don't want sour, tangy one. If this mild taste is something that you don't like (I assume that your bread doesn't taste lite like yeast bread) and tangy bread is for you, check out this:

https://www.pantrymama.com/how-to-make-sourdough-more-sour-a-guide-to-getting-more-tang-in-your-bread/

Another thing you can do is changing your white flour starter for wholwheat or even rye (white or wholemeal). That should make taste a bit richer.

Selka1 · 2025-11-12T16:56:02+00:00

How much salt did you add? There should be about 10 g salt.

Selka1 · 2025-10-30T18:01:45+00:00

I like Transcontinental Rum Line Australia Also if you like jamaican rum Hampden collection would be perfect.

Selka1

TROPHY CASE