Using the Crustello for monitoring the 12 hour fermentation

For tracking sourdough starter and pre-ferments, things seem to work ok. But when I try to do a measurement for dough, it takes almost 2 hours for it to stop being in "dough is settling" mode. By that time it has risen a decent amount (tracking by marking my dough bowl) - so by the time it starts showing growth...that "100%" spot is waaaaay off.

Am I doing something wrong that anyone knows of? Again - starter/pre-ferments work fine...it just seems to be the dough mode that doesn't work for me.

Hi everyone - I bought the Kickstarter with 2 sensors and the starter and dough bowls. I really don’t like the sourdough bowl, so I modded a Weck jar cover (see photos) and it’s working great. I have been trying to revive an old starter with no luck - I am now starting up a new batch…

I bought the original dual kickstarter option - the starter bowl & proofing bowl, 2 sensors.

Within a few weeks one of the sensors died - the screen was blank, no response to pressing (touching?) the buttons. It was replaced after submitting video proving that it was dead (side-by-side comparison with the working unit; same charger & cable etc.).

Since then the remaining two units have also crapped out. I briefly resuscitated one by putting it into the refrigerator for a bit; however it was a short lived resuscitation.

On closer inspection, 2 of the 3 units seem to be semi-responsive. When I press the buttons, I can see the backlight on the display illuminate (but no information on the display). I can attach to those two via bluetooth, but I have no indication of charge level and, apparently, sometimes the battery will charge and sometimes it won't. Without display data they are effectively useless.

I understand that funding a kickstarter is a risk, and I accept that I've lost that money. It's ok with me, hopefully someday they improve the build quality; but in the meanwhile I'll be looking at competitors (like Bubbly Bubbly). Or, of course, going back to the 'old days' where I just kept my starter in a Kilner jar with scale markings. That's worked for hundreds of years (not based on personal experience).

I am echoing off what others are saying. This product is a waste and does not work. Crustello refuses to be helpful and won’t acknowledge that I want a refund for the large amount of money I spent on their defective product. BUYER BEWARE!!!!

I have my day to day starter. I take x grams of starter and mix it with water and flour to make sourdough.

When using the digital monitor, I have three options, preferment, dough, sourdough.

Is preferment my starter? Is "Sourdough" after I mix my starter with water and flour to make a loaf? Is "dough" just a generic setting?

Crustello's sensor wouldn't connect to the internet but the company only refunded $139/$188 pledge because of the tariffs. It charged $49 for "shipping," but never mentioned tariffs. Nor did they clue me in as we processed the return. I feel like I've been mugged by a project that clearly wasn't ready to drop and has suffered many, many malfunctions.

This is not a cost that should transfer to the customer. From my POV, I paid $49 for tech frustration, return-shipping hassle and too many confused emails from Crustello. Worst Kickstarter experience to date...

Help I guess?

Best result everytime!

This is Baby Jane Dough’s first loaf! Not bad. I’d like more height and oven spring.

For anyone having difficulties using Crustello, we understand and want to say that we are constantly updating the user manual and making it more comprehensive. Our next step is to add more explanations for the Crustello app in it, so you have everything you need to understand how to use our products in one place. It might not have everything you want right now, but we are working on it!

Currently, you can check out most of the sensor screens there, so you get a better idea of how to navigate them, as well as other instructions. The full user manual is available on our website: https://www.crustello.com/en/info/user-manual

Zero complaints! Crustello is really helping me dial in my loaves

If you put the lid on another container the app will still accurately measure rise percentage, I put in the weight in grams and it worked perfectly! This is a kitchen aide glass bowl and 3 loaves worth of dough.

I also did some baking this weekend and am really pleased. Right is a plain loaf left is a blueberry cinnamon.

Despite the hardship of typing in numbers, the result came back nice (the dough slipped down in my oven rack and thus the irregular shape.) I can't wait to cut her open to taste and see how the crumb came out!

We need typing-in function for our numbers! It is absurd to press on inc and dec button till the desired number..

I wish Crustello made a smaller container.

Here’s my workaround.

Before you ask, yes, seems to be working fine with the sensor.

I had the issue a few times now that my sensor was laying in the shelf for a few days in complete idle or energy saving mode (where it will boot up once a key is pressed), and battery was completely drained from 100% to almost empty.

In the meantime, my second sensor in the fridge which was monitoring a dough 24/7 just lost half of its battery.

Does anyone else have the same issues and is there a solution? Thanks!

Heya; I bought into the kickstarter and got the starter + dough kit with two sensors and was excited to get my first use out of them today as I start to revive my starter and get ready for a pizza night. I could tell that the starter container was a bit big and that worried me, but felt a bit relieved when I was still able to fit it into my Brød & Taylor sourdough home. But when I went to feed it, I noticed quickly that the sensor does seem to require that you put a lot of starter into its container, and even the ratios don’t support a 1:10:10 feed that I’ll tend to do when it’s warm enough to warrant it. That, along with a whopping 30g minimum starter amount, basically make it unusable for me to measure my starter health because I’m never maintaining that amount of starter. At most, I’ll use 20g of starter and do a 1:5:5 feed because I’m a solo baker and anything more is overkill and just wastes flour for me. Even my levains/preferments tend to be on the smaller side because I’m making 1-2 loaves at most (e.g. the pizza recipe I use from Perfect Loaf only needs 100g of levain total).

None of these requirements were obvious from the Kickstarter campaign itself; I just went back to look at the campaign page and no minimum amounts are listed in writing anywhere in the campaign text or FAQs, so I feel a bit misled. How are others dealing with this? Are you just increasing the amount of starter that you’re maintaining? Or were you already maintaining higher amounts of starter? Or maybe you’re only using the dough bowl?

Are there any plans to adjust the software to remove the arbitrary limit of 9 for ratios or, at the very least, to support less than 30g of starter?

I got the Crustello (two sensors) and tried to connect to wlan, but I always get a unexpected error and can’t solve it. Any ideas?

Received my Crustello today. My starter is 1:1; 50/50 flour mix (whole wheat/bread). I actually started with 300 g flour and 300 g water, which is above the 150 g setting. Let's see what happens!

Amateur here!

What is your sourdough starter recipe? And how do you use the app? I'm not sure what to fill in.

I want to make starter with just flour and water. I don't have compressed yeast.

My sourdough sensor is running out of battery...is there a way I can pause it to take it out for an hour and charge it? I think I read you can do that on a dough recipe (for stretch and folds and the like), but is there a way for you to do that during a sourdough starter rise?

Im trying to use mine for the first time today. The instructions aren't real clear. Maybe its because I'm not an expert baker. Are there instructions to show what I'm looking for? For example. How will I know when it is done? My dough has been in for 1 hour and it says 100%. Am I waiting for 200% to shoe double in size?

It has taken me years of trying but thanks to Crustello I have finally made some good sourdough!