Hi Zlee, fermentation definitely happens faster when the temperature in your home warms up! For the starter process, one thing that can help slow things down when you're feeding your starter at room temperature is to feed your starter a relatively larger meal, which it will take a little longer to consume and ferment. And this doesn't have to mean using up more flour, since you can reduce the percentage of starter relative to the water and flour in each feeding. For example, our regular 1:1:1 (starter:water:flour, by weight) feeding which is composed of 113g of each, might be altered to a 1:5:5 feeding, which would look like this: 23g starter + 113g water + 113g flour. Shifting your feedings in this way can help you line up your twice daily feedings closer to the peak rise, which will help keep the yeast more active. Combining this method with cooler water, and your starter will definitely be more manageable during the summer months when it's out of the fridge. 

As far as the dough goes, using cooler water is definitely the way to go during summer baking! Check out our blog on Desired Dough Temperature for some tips on how to determine what temperature water to use in order to get your dough acting more like it does in cooler months. For sourdough recipes, which generally spend more time fermenting at room temperature than yeast-raised recipes, you may want to aim for an even cooler dough temperature, since your dough will gradually warm up to the temperature of your home as it rises and ferments. 

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