Scheduling Question
HI Everyone..
I'm making good progress and getting through FWSY. The next recipe is bread #11 in the book - "bran-encrusted levain bread". Here's the issue..
I need to bring charlie (my stiff rye starter) out of the fridge and develop a 360 gram levain the day before my bake. I'd like to bake on Sunday morning. Which would mean I should pull a small portion of charlie out the fridge Saturday morning, get him built by late afternoon, add him to a final dough by early evening and shape it by late evening into banneton baskets and into the fridge for an overnight cold ferment.
I'm in and out of the house on Wednesday during the day only. I'm working Thursday and home a bit Thursday night. Friday I'm at work and out that night. Saturday I'm out and home pretty late.
Is it possible to do this in stages over a few days? Thoughts?
The levain build is 10% mature active levain, 40% white flour, 10% whole wheat flour and 40% water. Charlie has now morphed into the no fuss no muss levain from dabrownman.
Any advice is helpful - even if it turns out to be "don't bake this week"..
Thanks!
I will frequently build my levain before I'm ready to use it and then refrigerate until the next day. It is happening at this very moment. So I don't see the issue with either splitting the builds with intermittent retarding or completing the builds and then retarding after completed.
Now, this works for me quite regularly. In fact I almost never go straight from build to mix. Can't be bothered with that type of scheduling. But there are an awful lot of folks here on TFL way more experienced than I am in this matter. So you should wait for others to chime in, which I have an inkling that they will!
alan
Thanks Alan.. when is "and then" for placing it in the fridge? Is it a few hours after you've mixed the starter and rest of the levain ingredients, or when the levain looks like it's peaking and otherwise would go into a final dough? Thanks!
I'll let my levain build come just short of peaking, or peak, and then pop it into the refrigerator. It will still take a while (no, don't start that again!) for the levain to cool down sufficiently to go to sleep and stop just about all activity. When I take it out of the refrigerator I usually don't bother to let it come back up to ambient temp. (as probably any good baker would). If I don't, then I will use warmer than "normal" water in the mix and allow that to help bring the levain back to room temp. Also the flour is room temp so that is also acting on warming up the levain as well.
It may be imperfect, and even frowned upon by many, but it seems to work just dandy for me. And that's exactly what will happen tomorrow morning with my sleepy chilly levain.
alan
I consider myself a good baker and will use starter directly from the fridge. It works for me. (And I only use warm water in the winter when the tap water temperature drops below 10C)
Who knows what perfect is, but for me, its being able to make good bread day after day after day...
-Gordon
is an under appreciated term! There are too many perfectionists around - and I must admit I have some of those tendencies.. but I keep trying to tell my kids that sometimes 85% is pretty good and more than enough.. so I'm all for being perfectly happy in an imperfect way! Thanks..
Of using it straight from the fridge as long as I have enough and built to the correct requirements.
I'm glad Gordon and Dabrownman introduced me to this idea as it does make life easier. So build your levain and pop it in the fridge and use when ready. Just allow for the time to be slightly adjusted as mature starter will be quicker than one that was matured a few days back.
I'll do this tomorrow and throw it in the fridge.. thanks!
I'd probably allow it to bubble up by 1/2 - 2/3rds and then put it in the fridge. This way it'll carry on feeding and maturing slowly, ready to be used when you're ready.
What I've learned in sourdough is that there are no absolutes. I used to think that I have to catch it when it peaks and just begins to fall every single time etc and many other examples. But really, its whatever works and there are myriad of ways and techniques. A recipe won't tell you this though so it seems more rigid. It isn't the nature of a recipe to do this.
I'm learning the same thing.. it's less about precision and more about intuition.. Let's see!
Abe.. So I fed the starter and let it rise (probably almost a double because I was out longer than thought) and put it in the fridge - that was yesturday. Tomorrow, I'm thinking of mixing the final dough but NOT shaping it.. I'll let it rise maybe almost double and then put it in the fridge. Then Saturday night late, I'll put it from the fridge, shape it in to my baskets and put it back into the fridge over night and shape bake it Sunday night..
My question is: is that TOO much time in the fridge? I know cold temps slow down the development, but I'm thinking I'm pushing boundaries here.. what do you think?
is the taste. If it slows down then that is all it has done, slow down. When it comes to the actual dough why not take it all the way to shaping and refrigerate. Then when you were thinking about shaping it to do a "3rd" retard, why not bake it?
So something like this...
Tomorrow (or today if you're reading this day-of): Form the dough, do all the stretch and folds, bulk ferment and shape into banneton. Refrigerate.
Next day: Bake straight from the fridge and leave to cool overnight.
If this is not possible then I don't really see why your first way won't work either. What can happen?
Will let you know! Thanks
Whether or not you decided to mix your final dough sooner than you really want to, here's another suggestion to allow you to own your time. Now that you have your multi-build levain finished and refrigerated, I get an inkling that you are concerned that it may "age" on you for lack of use within a few days. What you can opt to do is to just do a simple refresh of that mature levain with new food and water.
For example, let's say that you have 200g of ready-to-use levain, you can add another 100g of fresh feed (or scoop out 100g and place aside for later use), let it mature and you will have a refreshed and healthy levain to retard again and give you the opportunity to control your own schedule.
But think I'll not refresh and use this as a learning experience..
put your levain in the fridge before it peaks. In my case, I usually leave my just-refreshed levain on the counter for a couple of hours, then retard it. I've used it as much as a week later with no apparent issues.
So I made the levain last Wednesday, left it to just about double and put it in the fridge. On Friday I made the final dough and let it almost double. Then I shaped it and put it in the fridge. Sunday morning I baked it - about 36 hours after shaping. It had good oven spring, came out generally fine, but for a rustic bran and wheat germ recipe it wasn't really a very interesting flavour and the crust was a bit chewier than it should have been - and not in a good way.. And the crumb too seemed a bit chewier than it should have been. I don't think I'd make bread again if I had to go through this process.. but it was a good learning experience.. Thanks to all that offered help!!