The Fresh Loaf

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Cold Rise and Gas Produced

Anonymous baker's picture
Anonymous baker (not verified)

Cold Rise and Gas Produced

Lately I have been baking from Tartine Bread and it has been mostly hits with a few misses. Chad Roberston seems to contradict himself a few times and leave some things unclear. These are my questions/concerns:

1) Sometimes my loaves bake up seemingly baked through, but gummy, wet, and unpleasantly/excessively chewy on the inside. My loaves often experience a cold retardation for about 18 hours. Could this be because of increased enzyme activity over this period of time?

2) I was reading an article in Cooks Illustrated about New York style pizza, and the author claimed that a cold bulk fermentation would result in no CO2 pockets in the dough. Is this statement correct; I have been considering a cold bulk fermentation overnight (without stretch and folds) then shaping in the morning and either allowing to rise at room temp until fully proofed or allow to rise for an hour and then put it in the fridge until dinner (I KNOW! I'm not supposed to be eaten hot; but it's SO GOOD!) Might I also put it in the refridgerator to rise, still cold?

3) What about a cold, overnight autolyse. Or would this, again prove to initiate too much enzyme activity and perhaps use too much of the yeast's resources?

 

Thank you bread experts!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

need some warm time to reproduce and eat and give off gasses to raise the loaf, if the conditions are too cold, they simply stop.  If the dough is warm to some degree, they have a better chance of multiplying and making gas for you.  Use retarding as a time stretching tool and the added plus can be flavor improvement.  

If your dough starts out cold and goes into a cold refrigerator, it will not rise much.  You can retard in the very beginning or after a bulk rise.  What order, that's up to you and will influence your warmer rising times.  Temperatures play a major role both the dough temp and the fridge temp.  A cold dough that has had no warm time at all will take time to first warm up and then start to rise.  A warm dough that is partially risen and then retarded will continue to rise slowly in the cold temp and be ready to bake sooner after removal from the fridge.

I have mixed dough together and left out the salt and the yeast, parked it at 23°C in the corner and gone to bed.  The next day put in yeast, worked it in well and added the salt, working it well too.  Then got a quick bulk rise, degassed and reshaped letting it proof.  Then baked it.  That is with commercial packaged yeast.  I have also put this autolysed dough into the fridge to deal with later, that would be a cold autolyse and then working and folding the dough while adding salt and yeast with warm up the dough.  It can also be carefully warmed up in the microwave (run a search:  Microwave proof dough 30 sec) for more specific directions. 

I should warn you that I have not read Chad Robertson's book or his recipes so I'm not sure if we're talking sourdough or instant type yeast here.  Flour types used will also vary.  But a few extra folds (that don't tear the dough) have never hurt the dough and have improved on both the texture and the overall shape holding abilities of the dough to bake into a pleasing loaf.  

Skipping a bulk rise or letting the dough rise only once without folds or stretches going on as it rises, results in low gluten development and heavy bread as you describe.  

jrudnik's picture
jrudnik (not verified)

I apologize for not being more clear. Chad Robertson uses a young sour dough culture, a high hydration, and all purpose flour for most applications (around 75% for white boules, and 80% for WW), and lots of stretch and folds in the rising container (no kneading).

Your concept of microwave proofing is absolutely fascinating- I am very curious now. I can't bake this weekend, but maybe next weekend we will see some consistently awesome bread.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

What kind of AP are you using there in Florida and what's the protein amount for 100g?  Could be you are playing with extra low gluten flour geared more for those famous southern biscuits.  That might also explain your bread texture should it be the case.  

jrudnik's picture
jrudnik (not verified)

I mostly use King Arthur All Purpose, as suggested by Tartine Bread. Flours with a lower protein content cause thinner, crispier crusts, no? However, sometimes I use White Whole Wheat or Whole Wheat and the problems seem to be more frequently occurring when using mostly whole wheat.