I was getting tired of covering my mixing bowl with plastic wrap to keep the dough from drying out while it fermented. For me, unrolling, tearing, stretching plastic wrap has always been like wrestling an octopus. Besides, I hate throwing it away after using it for a few hours. I wanted to find a dough fermentation bin that had a top that would keep in the moisture but wasn't airtight. I was buying half sheet pans at my local Smart-n-Final and noticed what looked like the perfect containers. They were plenty big enough for folding the dough in the container. They had smooth bottoms that would allow the use of a plastic dough scraper and make cleaning easy. They had tops with little vent thingies that could be opened or closed. Most amazing of all they were cheap. They came three in a package for about $20. The only problem was that I had to get three of them which I didn't think I needed. I decided to wait until I had scouted around to see if I could find something comparable that I could buy just one of. Some bins had convoluted bottoms that would make it impossible to scrape out the dough. They had fancy lids that sealed so well that no gas could escape and complicated seals that would make them hard to clean. The better ones cost almost three times as much so I finally got the set of three.
Here are some pictures. The familiar book is in the picture to give an idea of how big they are. The brand is Reynolds. The largest batch of dough I've used it for so far was 6 lbs.
Here's a close-up of the vent. The almost readable word on it is "Casuals."
