cold retardation

Hey All,

Me again.  This whole baking and blogging thing is a little nutty...  It's something one of those things that's fun, tedious and addictive...  Anyway, let's get on with this post...  How long can you cold bulk retard a dough and still have some good bread?  I've done 24 hours with good and bad results.  How about longer?  Why cold bulk retarding vs cold retarded proofing?  Well, from my experience, cold retarded proofing in a linen lined banneton seems to dry out the surface of the dough, so after baking, the crust becomes thick and tough...  This is my experience.  Also, I have a small under the counter refrigerator that has enough room to bulk retard maybe 4kg of dough in 2 X 4L plastic tubs.  So bulk retardation is my only option short of not sleeping if you've been following my baking schedule these days...

Here's my recipe:

Liquid Levain:

150g White Whole Wheat Flour

50g Rye Flour

50g Liquid Sourdough Storage Starter (100% hydration)

200g Water

450g Total Liquid Levain

Final Dough:

1000g AP

616g Water

30g Kosher Salt

450g Liquid Levain

2096g Approx Total Dough Yield

9/14/10

8:15pm - Mix liquid levain, cover and let rest on counter overnight.

9/15/10

8:00am - Mix final dough (in large mixing bowl put in water first, then levain, flour, salt).  Mix with rubber spatula until shaggy dough forms.  Cover and let rest 20 minutes.

8:25am - Knead for few minutes with wet hands until relatively smooth dough forms, transfer to lightly oiled container at least 4L, cover and let rest.

8:45am - Turn dough in container (stretch and fold), cover, place into refrigerator (40F), go to work.

9/16/10

6:30pm - Come home and take the dough out of the refrigerator and find that it was working on escaping the container

Divide into 2 equal pieces, shape into boules and place into linen lined bannetons and proof for 3 hours.

8:40pm - Arrange 2 baking stones on 2 levels, put steam pan in oven, preheat to 500F with convection.

9:45pm - Take bannetons out of plastic bag, lightly flour and give poke test...

10:00pm - Turn off convection. 

Turn boule out onto a lightly floured peel, slash as desired and place into oven directly onto stone.  When last loaf is in, pour 1 1/2 cups water into steam pan, close oven door.  Turn oven down to 450F and bake for 50 minutes, rotating between stones half way.  Then turn off oven and leave loaves in for another 10 minutes.

Loaves are done when the internal temp reaches 205F or higher (210F preferred), and they weigh at least 15% lighter than their prebaked weight.  Mine were 1050g before baking, and around 870g after, which is about a 17% weight loss...

Cool completely before cutting and eating...  Crumbshots tomorrow morning...  I wonder it this is a less stressfull baking schedule...  You tell me...

Tim

I made my San Joaquin Sourdough today with a couple of modifications.

The last few bakes, I have substituted a liquid levain for the the firmer levain and also have used a higher percentage of levain, although, since I've used a liquid levain, the percentage of pre-fermented flour in the dough is actually lower. Also, note that, while the “final dough” hydration is 72%, the total dough hydration is actually closer to 78% because of the high-hydration levain. This is actually a somewhat higher hydration than my original formula for San Joaquin Sourdough.

The second modification was to cold retard the dough for a longer time – 36 hours as opposed to the 16-20 hours I have generally used. This was for my convenience, but I've also been curious about the effects of longer cold retardation on this dough.

Procedure

1. Mix the liquid levain (1:5:4 – Starter:Water:Flour). Let it ferment at room temperature for 12 hours.

2. Pour the water into a large mixing bowl. Add the starter and dissolve it in the water.

3. Add the flours and mix to a shaggy mass. Cover tightly and let it sit for 20-60 minutes.

4. Sprinkle the salt over the dough and mix thoroughly using the “stretch and fold in the bowl” technique. Let it rest for 30 minutes.

5. Repeat the “stretch and fold in the bowl” for 30 strokes 2 more times at 30 minute intervals.

6. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured board, and do a stretch and fold.

7. Return the dough to the bowl and cover.

8. After 45 minutes, repeat the stretch and fold on the board.

9. Reform the dough into a ball and replace it in the bowl.

10. Allow the dough to continue fermenting until the volume has increased 25%.

11. Cold retard the dough for about 36 hours.

12. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and immediately transfer it to a lightly floured board.

13. Divide the dough into two equal pieces and pre-shape them into logs or rounds, depending on whether you want to make boules or bâtards. Cover the pieces with plasti-crap and let them rest for 60 minutes. (Give them a shorter rest if the kitchen is very warm. You don't want them to expand very much, if any.)

14. Pre-heat the oven to 500ºF with a baking stone and your steaming method of choice in place.

15. Shape the pieces and place them in bannetons or on a couche. Cover the loaves and proof them until they have expanded by 50-70%. (30-45 minutes)

16. Pre-steam the oven. The transfer the loaves to a peel (or equivalent). Score them, and load them onto your baking stone.

17. Steam the oven. Turn the oven down to 460ºF.

18. After 12 minutes, remove your steaming apparatus. Turn the loaves 180º, if necessary for even browning.

19. Continue to bake the loaves for another 15-18 minutes or until their internal temperature is 205ºF.

20. Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack.

21. Cool the loaves completely before slicing.

Because I was planning on a longer cold fermentation, I refrigerated the dough sooner than I would have otherwise – when it had expanded about 25%. In the refrigerator, the dough continued to expand, but very slowly. At 24 hours, it had expanded to 150% its original volume. At 36 hours, it had doubled in volume.

The dough was of about the same consistency as usual. This is a sticky dough, at 78% hydration, but it was easy to handle with lightly floured hands. The dough had nice extensibility but excellent strength. The pre-shaped pieces and shaped loaves held their shapes very well. I could not say that the longer cold retardation resulted in any problematic gluten degradation.

The crumb was as expected with this bread. There was no evident effect from the longer retardation. The flavor, on the other hand, was distinctly tangier. The initial flavor was the lovely, complex flavor of the San Joaquin Sourdough. The moderate sourness came through a bit later, and the flavor lingered on the palate for an exceptionally long time.

I would certainly recommend trying this version to any who have enjoyed the San Joaquin Sourdough before and favor a more assertive sourdough tang to their bread.

David

Submitted to YeastSpotting

This is my first blog post on TFL, although I've been lurking around for nearly a year now. I started getting in to sourdough baking in Spring (southern hemisphere) last year but my poor little starter went on hiatus when we took a couple of months overseas holiday at the beginning of this year. Now it's June and I'm only just reawakening Owen, my starter. Luckily, our housesitter indulged my detailed instructions on feeding Owen while we were away. (Although she said something along the lines of "if I had a baby whose nappy smelled as bad as that bread thingy, I wouldn't change it"...)

I decided I wanted to make some bread with a cold retardation -- this tends to fit with my schedule a bit better than trying to go through the whole process in one day. Because my baking results have been inconsistent, I am also hedging my bets by making a yeasted bread that fits almost the same schedule as the sourdough.

For my yeasted bread, I'm using the Baguettes a l'Ancienne posted by DonD a few weeks ago: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17415/baguettes-l039ancienne-cold-retardation

For my sourdough, I'm using the Pierre Nury Rustic Light Rye posted by zolablue: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5500/pierre-nury’s-rustic-light-rye-leader 

So I mixed up my flour mixture and levain last night. Hiccup one: when I got up this morning, my sourdough levain looked virtually unchanged. I'm not used to using a stiff starter, so maybe it's meant to look like a floury lump, but I wasn't convinced there was enough life in the levain to rise the bread. So I have divided that recipe in half, using half the stiff levain and half my usual wet starter, which I fed last night. 

Here's hoping that I get some success out of one of the three doughs currently fermenting on my counter!

EDIT: the next day

Gahhh! My sourdough has COMPLETELY flopped -- didn't rise at all except for a little half-hearted attempt during baking. I should have known the starter and levain weren't going to do the job, but gosh I wanted them to! Plus I think I got the gluten development thing right this time. 

I haven't baked the yeasted bread yet but I'm reallyreallyreally hoping I get at least one good loaf out of this three-day effort!