Refrigerated proofing
I'm new to sourdough baking, I've only baked one loaf so far (and it was successful), and a couple batches of pizza dough.
I've seen a number of people who have recommended refrigerating the dough after the dough has been shaped and placed in a proofing basket. What I'm confused about is whether after the refrigeration period, are you supposed to allow it to warm up to room temperature and continue proofing, or do you bake it directly after removing it from the refrigerator?
From what I've seen, it seems like some people are baking it right after removing it from refrigeration (although they didn't really clarify). But I also read someone saying to remove the dough from refrigeration, and allow it to warm up to room temperature for a couple hours. With pizza dough, I refrigerated the dough, and then allowed it to warm up to room temperature before dividing it and forming balls, and then allowing those to relax and proof for another hour or so. It was necessary to allow the pizza dough to warm to room temperature, because it wouldn't be effective to stretch the dough out into a pizza crust while cold. But if you're making a loaf, can it/should it be baked right after removing it from refrigeration?
It can go either way. If you let it sit out, that just adds to the total proofing time.
The banneton and any covering material (plastic wrap, towel, bag) will serve to insulate the dough mass and slow it from coming up to room temperature, compared to letting it sit "naked.". But, to whatever degree it does eventually warm up, fermentation/proofing accelerates.
So neither way is the "correct" way, but as always, Time and Temperature are factors/ingredients in the formula, and have to be accounted for or reckoned with.
I personally prefer to refrigerate dough about 2/3 of the way through the bulk (first) rise [precisely when depends on how quickly your dough rises - earlier if you use a whole packet of dry yeast, later if you use only a pinch or dry yeast or if you use sourdough], then remove it, let it sit on the counter an hour (plus or minus) to take some of the chill off, shape, proof, and bake.
And you’ll have to test to see what works for you!
As to me, what works is Using about 11% prefermented flour (that’s the amount of flour in the levain. Then bulking to 30-40% after developing the gluten through a stand mixer and folds. Then preshaping, resting a half hour, final shaping and letting rest on the counter maybe 5 minutes before going into the fridge. Fridge is cold at about 38F. The next morning, I bake the loaves in hot hot hot (475F) Dutch ovens right out of the fridge. I usually get best oven spring if I keep the refrigerated time between 10 and 12 hours. Oh and i drop the temp to 450F for the first 25 minutes and then to 425F for the last 22 minutes.
With pizza dough, divide and ball before going into the refrigerator then when you take them out you should wait until the dough balls reach about 55° before stretching. For bread, I go straight from the refrigerator to the oven. Both work perfectly.
... there’s just what works for you.
Your question is a good one, but I think the answer depends a bit on the outcome you’re looking for.
As far I understand, people might refrigerate (‘retard’) their dough for different reasons, e.g.:
and doubtless other reasons too :-)
I don’t think it matters greatly whether you allow the loaf to come back to room temperature first, if only because the temperature difference between fridge and room is only likely to be 20°C or so, which is negligible compared to that between room and oven which is going to be more like 200°C.
You will however have to increase the cooking time by 10 mins or so if you’re baking straight from the fridge (it may be helpful to use a temperature probe to check the internal temperature to find when cooking is complete); and you might prefer to lower the temperature of the oven slightly to prevent the crust getting too thick due to the longer cooking time.
Please do share back with us the results of your experimentation!
After my loaves have been in th refrigerator over night, I put them straight in the oven. They rise beautifully.
I'm exploring retarding to slow one loaf down when I'm baking two because I only have room in the oven for one.
To get a feel for how quickly dough cools in my frig I borrowed 590g of my grand-daughter's home made salt play-dough and kneaded some air into it - I reckon this is a reasonable model for bread dough. I put it in a '500g' wood fibre brotform in my frig at 3C (37F) with a thermometer in the middle and recorded its temperature. Over a typical normal proofing time of 90 minutes the dough cooled form 23C (73F) to 20C (68F), see graph: