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Submitted by Pythagereon on January 18, 2010 - 3:27pm Cold Fermentation ProblemsI've been baking bread for a couple of months now and over the weekend I decided to try my hand at a whole wheat loaf. I chose a Honey Wheat Sandwich bread adapted from a Peter Reinhart recipe. It called for a biga so I made it and then let it refrigerate for 12 hours. In that time I saw no fermentation at all. The bigga did not rise one bit. I'm also seeing this with other doughs I put in my refigerator to ferment over night. No fermentation. I was wondering what the problem could be. Is it just the yeast I'm currently using can the refrigerator be to cold? Any ideas on what the problem could be would be really helpful.
Thanks, John
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I believe that when you make
I believe that when you make a biga, you usually let said preferment initiate the fermentation at room temperature for 2 to 4 hours before saving to refrigerator.
Don't know if it was not that the refrigerator was too cold, but more that the yeast in the biga, never had a chance to get good and activated(properly). The biga should get a good rise before refrigeration.
I think the same usually holds for batches of dough. You usually want them to get some sort of start at room temp before refrigerating. Maybe 30 min or so?
I always at least let my
I always at least let my shaped dough show signs of rising before moving to the fridge. I also notice like you say not allot of rising going on in the fridge, I have of late started taking my loaves out for a few hours to warm up somewhere mid retarding time, this seems to help, things actually happen in there this way. I am talking sourdough, but maybe this works the same?
Reinhart's recipe doesn't call for the biga to rise
In "Whole Grains" he acknowledges there won't be much rise in the biga overnight. I make it just as he says, refrigerate immediately, and I don't see much fermentation activity either, but the bread turns out perfectly every time. He calls for quite a bit (2 tsp) of additional yeast in the final dough, and that's what gives you the rise, unlike recipes that don't use much yeast.
How did the bread turn out?
Further Comment
MrFrost/Hutchndi - I think this is what I'll do when I try out the next loaf. Thanks for the idea.
EdithPilaf - It looked like it was OK but when I cut into the bread the crumb was horrible. I know for sandwich breads the crumb is supposed to have small air pockets or bubbles but this had none. It looked like solid dough.
Thanks for the responses.
Which recipe?
Neither Reinhart's whole wheat in Crust and Crumb or BBA call for immediate refrigeration of the biga. The only one that does is the recipe in Whole Grains, and that one compensates by adding the extra 2 tsp yeast after removing from the fridge. If you used the extra yeast, I don't think the problem was with the cold fermentation. Could be your yeast.
Reinhart's other recipes call for fermentation of the biga a room temperature just as the other posters have suggested. It could be that your adaptation takes part of a Reinhart recipe and omits a crucial part.