May 9, 2011 - 8:18am
Retarding Sourdough
I'm looking to find a way to be able to bake sourdough loaves around 9 or 10 in the morning without having to stay up all night working. I was wondering if anyone has any tips. Would it be better to retard the dough during bulk fermentation, or the final proof? The dough would be something along the lines of the Tartine bread. Are there mixing temperature changes that I should consider?
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Hope you have a banneton or similar. Proof half to three quaters of the way; fridge overnite in banneton, or bread may flatten, pull out next morn and bake after 1 to 2 hours. From these results you'll most likely have to experiment with time in and out of fridge.
Jim
The temperature at which you retard is really quite important so you probably want to take some measurements so you know what your refrigerator is doing for (to) you. For sourdough, the retard time will depend on what happened on the way to the retarder and to some extent on the configuration of the retarder (air circulation will strongly impact how fast the dough cools down). The fraction of prefermented flour and the bulk fermentation time and temperature will be the major variables. Hamelman suggests that for his formulations (15% prefermented flour, 2.5 hr bulk fermentation at 76°F) which will proof in 2 to 2.5 hrs at 76°F, can be retarded for 8 hrs at 50°F or up to 18 hrs at 42°F. You should be able to find a set of initial conditions and a trajectory that produce the results you want.
Doc
I use a digitally controlled wine cooler at 54*F for all of the retarding called for in recipes. For example, using Txfarmer's 36+ hr baguette recipe, I do a 12 hr overnight autolyse (all the flour and ice water) and sd levain build (at the same time). Second morning I make the final dough (mixing the levain with the autolysed flour and add the salt) then a 3 hr bulk ferment (S&F every 30 min) at room temp, then a 21 hr overnight bulk retard. On the third day, I shape cold from the cooler and bake about 45 minutes later when it passes the proof test. I have bread out of the oven by 10am. Without the cooler and just the fridge at 40*F, I'd have to wait an extra 2 hours on the third morning to get the dough up to temperature and finish the bulk ferment, then do the shaping, then proof. With the cooler, it's fully ready to be shaped first thing. I find the high hydration doughs a lot easier to shape when they are 54* vs room temp
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Does this help?
Pamela
I normally mix my dough when i come home from work, around 6 pm, do three stretch and folds over 1.5h, and then leave it - bulk fermentation. I shape loaves right before I go to bed, around 11pm or midnight and stick them in the fridge. I set oven to pre-heat an hour before I wake up, and bake it straight out of the fridge.
My loaves are normally 20% - 40% starter, white with a bit of rye