Hi!

Does anyone have experience and/or advice freezing dough after the bulk (primary) fermentation?

My recipes are usually typical French, beginning with a Pate Fermentee or a Poolish and a somewhat slow fermentation process at about 60 degrees.  Getting a truly accented nutty flavor seems to allude me.

Would appreciate any and all suggestions.

Neil (Denver)

Has anyone out there tried freezing bagels after boiling but before baking?  I have to make brunch for 50 on the morning of my sister's wedding and really want everything to be as fresh as possible.  The general plan would be to thaw them in the fridge the night before and then bake them in the morning.  Unfortunately I  just thought of this possibility and don't have time to experiment before the actual event.  Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Summer

I wonder whether any one can give me some guidance on this. Rather stupidly, I embarked on raising a sourdough starter a week ago. It's active now, although not as active as I'd hoped it was going to be. Because of that, I've decided not to attempt this dough until I get back from a prolonged absence from home. I _could_ ask someone to feed it for me but think I'd be happier just putting it into slumber mode until I get back, in about 4 weeks time. Soooo, my question is whether it will be better to freeze it or to put it into the coldest corner of the fridge. It was one I started from scratch a week ago, it's been mildly active for the past 48 hours but only manages to raise a couple of very small and slow bubbles per minute. I suppose that suggests I should ask a second question - whether to continue feeding it before making it dormant/frozen or whether to leave it weak.

Any helpful advice appreciated.

Sojourner

PS. This is only my 2nd go at a starter. The last one, a few months ago, never becmae active and simply turned into pink/red gunk.

Hello,

I am reading the excellent "Crust and Crumb" by Peter Reinhart" In the section on poolish, page 34, he says: "you can freeze unused poolish and save it for another time, if you do so just before or after refreigerating it on the first night"

I am surpised, I thought freezing killed yeast cells? Any thoughts on how this works, or how long you could get away with leaving it frozen and then using it?

Darell

I'm fairly new to the bread making world (although I'm dying to get better and much more into it) and I'm curious how to go about Freezing Yeast breads? I know it's fairly easy for Quick Breads etc, but my husband and I just can't eat two whole loaves before 1 goes bad - what type of preperation should I give the second loaf before I freeze it until we're ready for it?

Thanks!

I was inspired by a question by someone in another bread forum and my own recent discovery and love affair with baking pita.  In the other forum, the person had frozen shaped bread dough and then was having problems reviving it.  I wondered if she could make pitas with it.  While that question remains unanswered, I tried a related experiment.

I picked a nice basic bread recipe - in this case, an adaptation of Bernard Clayton's Rosemary-Garlic Bread on page 464 of my edition.  The recipe calls for about half whole wheat flour and half white flour, and I, of course, used all whole wheat.  I also, as usual, used considerably less than the 2 packets of yeast - possibly a teaspoon, but I don't remember. And I'm sure I stuck it in the refrigerator for a good part of its early life.  It's been a couple weeks.  But that's my modus operandi.

I divided the dough into twenty-four equal balls, which would make them smaller than might have been called for (for about six cups of flour for two standard loaves).  I then rolled the balls to 1/8 inch thickness, using those rubber bands I found online (Fanta, I think) for my rolling pin.  And I managed to freeze them by placing them in the freezer on non-stick cookie sheets for a couple hours and then stacking them and putting them in freezer bags.  (A smaller quantity would have made the logistics of this step a bit simpler.)

I now take them out two at a time and bake them in my Oster countertop convection oven.  Today I had my greatest success so far.  I placed the frozen pitas between two sheets of parchment paper on top of the oven with an inch or so of space between the oven and the pitas.  I then pre-heated the oven to 450 (its top temperature) with my little toaster-oven baking stone in the middle for about half an hour.  Then I placed one piece of parchment and the pitas on the stone.  In less than two minutes the pitas were big round balls.

Sorry, no pictures.  All gone.  Maybe next time.  I still have plenty more from this batch to experiment with.

Rosalie

I tried the advice in Peter Reinhart's BBA, sliced up a loaf of rye baked this past weekend and froze the slices. Using a long sheet of plastic wrap, I wrapped the slices so each one had wrap on both sides, then put them in a ziplock freezer bag.

The thawed bread tasted very fresh, but I'm wondering if there is a more efficient method of doing this. My freezer is pretty full so a few of the slices were a bit squished.

I just started a new job where one of my tasks is to keep the restaurant supplied with fresh bread for their bread baskets.  The exec chef and I have decided on a baguette of some type (I'm thinking something like a whole wheat molasses dough), a 7-grain epi, and a sundried tomato fougasse. 

I have other tasks as well, so making fresh dough every day will be impossible.  I am thinking about doing all of my dough production on one day and freezing it, so it can be proofed and baked for service.  I do have a large proof box and three hearth ovens in my kitchen, so volume is not the problem.  I'm trying to come up with some sort of organization that would be best suited to my product.

At what stage can I freeze the dough?  Can I take it all the way to the shaping/final proofing stage and freeze shaped (unbaked) loaves?  How can I defrost and properly proof and bake them?

This is my first time not baking on the same day that I've shaped the dough, so I'm kind of clueless.  At what point would it be best frozen and thawed? 

 Thanks in advance for the help!

Kristen

Just a quick question, Ive just made Susans sourdough again and the Apple and walnut  braid, will they both successfully freeze if I slice them first?

Cheers

Dave w