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Fitting a sourdough cycle with full time work

bw54's picture
bw54

Fitting a sourdough cycle with full time work

Now that I feel I'm on top of making basic, failproof sourdough, my next bread project is to focus on the following problem: Usually starter refreshes, bulk rises etc. using a sourdough starter take about 5-6 hours if done at room temperature. But 5-6 hours is a terribly inconvenient time frame if one is engaged in a busy full time workday life. Thinking of this period while one either sleeps, or is at work is simply too short. But to do a refrigerated bulk rise, for example, would require additional time after the folding and shaping for the dough to come up to room temperature, thus extending the time required for shaping and folding/final rise/baking from about 2 hours to 4 possibly more hours. 

I should also note that I use a refrigerated preferment - I always have a jar in the fridge - because this allows me to think in terms of an 8 hour sequence from the "I'd like to make a loaf of bread" to it finally coming out of the oven. 

So here is the challenge I am going to be working on: How can I adjust the ratio of preferment to additional flour/water  for the bulk rise so that its optimal rising time is more in the vicinity of 10 -12 hours at room temperature, as opposed to 5-6 hours? Doing this would make the sourdough cycle more compatible with a full time work timeframe: One would be able to either prepare it in the evening, and bake it early in the morning, or set up the preferment before leaving for work and doing the final rise and baking at the other end of the day. 

Anyone else thinking along these lines out there? 

 

Mebake's picture
Mebake

I do the latter one: set up a preferment before leaving work (as early as 6:00 am), and doing the final rise and baking when I come from work. In order to have a preferment that is ready and just ripe when I come home, I feed it 12 hours earlier with only little amount of starter (say a scant teaspoon). However, I do this at room temperature, as my house is air conditioned, but you may need more if you have a cooler kitchen. The best way is to experiment and accept the fact that it may not work for a couple of times. After a few trials, you'll be able to eyeball everything based on you previous experiences.

Best of luck, and happy baking!

Khalid

bw54's picture
bw54

So... in your standard loaf, what is a typical weight of the starter you use and what is the typical weight of flour you add for your bulk rise (at autolyse)? 

 

Mebake's picture
Mebake

a typical recipe for me would yield around 1800 grams or two medium loaves, out of which 280g is the starter. Total autolysed flour is half the overall recipe yield: 900g. 280g starter has roughly 140g of flour (liquid starter), so 140/900 = 15% prefermented flour. 

Khalid

rozeboosje's picture
rozeboosje

Luckily I get to work from home a few days a week, so I can fit some of this into the occasional coffee break, but indeed.... I'd love to see what the experts have to say about this.

[ticks the "All comments" radio button]

WoodenSpoon's picture
WoodenSpoon

12 hours using a 1 to 20 ratio of active chef to water and flour, that would be 5g chef to 100 g water and 100g flour. If I were you I would build the levain a little before you go to work, get home, mix a 20% or so prefermented dough, bulk ferment it for an hour or so, shape it and pop it in the fridge, then the following morning hopefully it will be proofed and assuming it is ready you could bake it cold right out of the fridge. I think its either this, something close to this but adjusted to fit yer room temp or you will need to adjust your sleep patterns to let the dough do its thing. Or bake on weekends. 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

of starter you can build a levain over 12-24 and then refrigerate it for another 24-48 hours too.  You can also retard after gluten development and a short bulk ferment for 12-24 hours either bulk or shaped.   IF shaped you can bake it cold out of the fridge or let it warm up if not fully proofed.  If you do a bulk retarded ferment, you can do another  12 hour retard, possibly longer, after shaping and bake it either cold out of the fridge or let it warm up if not fully proofed. or just shape it and bake it without another retard.

So, you can go from an 18 all counter to 48 -60 hour method depending on your schedule and knowing how long each kind of process takes to do its thing.  The fridge is your best tool to meet any schedule that one might have.  You just have to figure out which combination works best for youur schedual.  The fgreat thing is that aas yourr schedule changes or your windows open up for baking unexpectedly you can make a baking methodfit it to a tee,

bw54's picture
bw54

We both agree on the point of the effectiveness of using a fridge. For me the preferment - I think I call it that, you and others call it levain -  stays in the fridge until I need it  - and that's the glory of fridges. 

So I have 2 questions. What is your experience shaping and baking right out of the fridge? My fear there is that the differential between a fridge temperature start point and a room temperature start point before baking will result in an overcooked outside and undercooked middle. 

secondly: typically what weight of starter and what weight of flour at the bulk ferment stage do you use for say a 12 hour in the fridge bulk ferment? 

cerevisiae's picture
cerevisiae

Depending on various factors (how much time I have and the ambient temp, desired level of sourness), I can mix up some starter either in the morning and come home to a nice ripe levain, or mix a levain when I get home. Then I do the autolyse, mix, and bulk ferment in the afternoon/evening, then shape it and put the basket in the fridge overnight, then bake the next morning.

doughooker's picture
doughooker

@ 0 hours: Autolyze for 1 hour

@ 1 hour: Prepare starter/levain, go to bed, ferment for 8 hours

@ 9 hours: Mix dough, go to work, proof for 10 hours

@ 19 hours: Form loaves, bake 1 hour

@ 20 hours: Remove from oven, cool

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

then make the levain for 8 hours overnight ...isn't that a 10 hour autolyse?  I build the levain first and then at the 7 hour mars I also do the autolyse so in 8 hours both the levain and autolyse are ready to go.

bw54's picture
bw54

So... What weight of starter do you typically use?  - your 8 hour ferment

When you mix the dough, what is the weight of the flour you use? (go to work, proof for 10 hours)

 

doughooker's picture
doughooker

Let's revise it to:

@ 0 hours: Prepare starter/levain, go to bed, ferment for 8 hours

@ 8 hours: Autolyze 1 hour

@ 9 hours: Mix dough, go to work, proof for 10 hours

@ 19 hours: Form loaves, bake 1 hour

@ 20 hours: Remove from oven, cool

bw54's picture
bw54

Thanks all for the interest in this. Its great to see  that so many have both divergent and similar approaches. 

I've asked some some further questions, as what I would eventually like to do is to develop a formula that can predict the optimal bulk rising time based on the ratio between the amount of starter used and the weight of flour (and subsequently water and salt as a function of the flour) used at the bulk ferment stage. 

Having said it, it may be a quixotic venture, but  -  hey  - its on my mind! 

So if anyone would like to supply some start up data, here are the pieces I'm specifically interested in: 

  1. the weight of starter you use
  2. the weight of flour used at the bulk ferment stage - either in a single ferment or using a preferment
  3. the optimal time for you for these conditions.

As an example, in my case, for 100g of starter I will use 280g of flour, and the optimal bulk rise from this is about 5-6 hours, with a 2 hour shaped loaf rise. 

doughooker's picture
doughooker

A.P. flour: 196.5 g (1 1/2 C)

Starter (133% hydration): 91.5 g

Water: 91.5 g

Salt: 4 g (1/2 tsp)

The dry ingredients (flour and salt) are measured in cups/teaspoons.

I use tap water treated with chloramine in the starter and dough, and it works just fine.

I don't see why my schedule wouldn't fit into your work cycle; it does mine. You have two 8 - 10 hour windows, one for the starter to rise and one for the dough to proof and that's it. No additional proofing/rising/fermenting/retarding time is necessary, other than the one-hour autolyze.

bw54's picture
bw54

Thank you all for your responses. I feel honored to be able to peek into your bread making lives. Your responses though have pushed me to take this a little further and to gather and  organize my data in a little more cohesive way. 

I created a survey. It won't take a long time to do. I'll be using the data in your posts above to start me off, but I'd invite readers to click on the link and participate in it. You will also see where I am headed next with this little experiment. 

http://goo.gl/forms/tEU3vzVeZw -

Thank you so much!!! 

bw54's picture
bw54

I found a combination that worked for me. 

It was a combination of a minimal levian and the basement, and a 24 hour start to finish period.

the ingredients: 100g of preferment at about 117% , 667g flour, 416g water, 14g salt. There is very little preferment used here. I make my preferment as follows: 1:1:1 starter @166%:flour:water. So the starter:bulk rise flour ratio is about 20:1

Then: it bulk rises in the darkest coolest corner of the basement between 6AM and 10:30PM. Temperature is 13 celsius - or about 60 or so F. At 1030PM, it is stretched and folded, put into a loaf pan (or whatever one wants - for me a loaf pan) At 5:30AM the oven goes on, by 5:45 the loaf nicely risen is popped in and by 6:30 it comes out - nicely risen and baked.

Bread for Breakfast! done within a typical workday schedule! Yaaay! 

bw54's picture
bw54

Finally I have a really great functional hydration table/spreadsheet log. 

A brief review of my trials and tribulations (mainly the latter) are on my blog here: https://homecookexplorer.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/getting-nerdy-with-sourdough/

More importantly the blog contains the links to 2 hydration tables, one that anyone can use to figure out their own quantities, and either of them can be downloaded.