This Ingenious Sourdough Gadget Makes Baking Delicious Fresh Bread a Breeze – I Can't Live Without It

Stressed about your sourdough? The Brod & Taylor sourdough warmer will preserve your precious starter all year round

Loaf of bread on wood board with serrated knife
(Image credit: Future)

If, like me, you became a little obsessed with making sourdough a few years ago (remember the craze during lockdown?), you'll have had some time to hone your craft. Ever since reading Aran Goyoaga's guide to gluten-free baking, however, I've been eager to try out some different recipes – but I know that it's time to upgrade my baking setup. Enter the Brod & Taylor Sourdough Home: an ingenious sourdough warmer that maintains the optimal temperature of your starter, so you'll never need to worry about constant upkeep.

Sourdough can be notoriously difficult to master, and for me, timing and preparation is always the biggest challenge. Yet with the Brod & Taylor Sourdough Home gracing my countertop, I'll always be one step ahead: it means I can feed my starter either daily or weekly, keeping it warm and active until I'm ready to use.

Winter is well and truly upon us, and it's safe to say that my kitchen is pretty chilly (no matter how hard I try to create a cozy space). Naturally, this is bad news for my sourdough starter, which doesn't thrive in cold conditions – so investing in a dedicated warmer like the Brod & Taylor Sourdough Home has taken all the stress out of my baking.

Stable, ambient heat is the key to keeping a starter active, but it can still involve a lot of guesswork. With a sourdough warmer, however, such uncertainty vanishes: the Brod & Taylor Sourdough Home can self-regulate to maintain the precise temperature required to grow a starter.

If I'm planning to make a loaf every few days, I can easily increase the temperature so that my starter is ready to ferment; but more often than not, I'm only baking fresh bread every few weeks, so I can keep things low and steady without worrying that my starter will become inactive. I'd say the Brod & Taylor Sourdough Home is a real bread-making essential, and I don't know how I ever lived without it.

Loaves of bread on a linen table cloth

(Image credit: Photo by Delfina Cocciardi on Unsplash)

Life can be hectic, and I don't usually have the luxury of spending hours in the kitchen – so baking a fresh loaf of bread always makes me feel accomplished. It's certainly a labor of love, but with a countertop hero like the Brod & Taylor Sourdough Home, I can devote time to bread-making without the hassle of daily starter feedings. It gives me one less thing to think about; and since a healthy starter creates a better loaf, this handy appliance helps to produce rich, bakery-worthy loaves every time.

So, whether you're a keen baker or your sourdough journey is just beginning, I'd say that the Brod & Taylor Sourdough Home is a worthwhile investment. Few things are better than homemade bread, but anything that takes the stress out of the bread-making process will always get my stamp of approval.

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Looking to expand your bread-making repertoire? I've been loving Clodagh McKenna's cheddar seeded sunflower bread recipe; it's flavorsome, comforting, and a brilliant companion to winter soups or stews.

Martha Davies
Content Editor

Martha is a Content Editor on the Living team at Homes & Gardens. Her love for lifestyle journalism began when she interned at Time Out Dubai when she was 15 years old; she went on to study English and German at Oxford, before covering property and interior design at Country & Town House magazine. To Martha, living beautifully is all about good food and lots of colorful home decor.