The Fresh Loaf

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Advice for slowing final rise

hreik's picture
hreik

Advice for slowing final rise

Hey Gurus,

I am baking 1-2x/week.  It's hot and humid here in CT, USA (90 F) and I note that all my rising times are less than half of what they were in the winter.  This is expected b/c of heat and b/c I'm sure my starter is now very strong.  What I'm having trouble with is this: Final rise in fridge is also rapid.

After the bulk rise, I divide my dough and bench rest.  Then I shape, put in brotform and refrigerate.  Lo and behold I'm forced to bake within a few hours b/c loaves are rising quickly even in the fridge.  My fridge temp is 42F, so I know it's not that.  I'm thinking the yeast is so active that it's taking off anyway and not slowed by the fridge.  Now to be honest, I've not been courageous enough to let it go in fridge overnight b/c I don't want 4 over-proofed loaves the next day. Perhaps after 3 hours it'll slow enough to stall, but I'm chicken to try.

In a separate post I noticed that Alfonso talked about refrigeration during the last hour of the bulk fermentation, then removing and dividing, shaping and returning to the fridge overnight.  Has anyone tried this?

Thank you in advance

hester

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

for obvious reasons. But i'll venture some ideas...

1. Retard the dough in the bulk fermentation stage. Take out when ready and final proof at room temp till ready. In this heat develop the gluten and refrigerate. Take out of the fridge when ready to do so. Shape and final proof for however little time needed.

2. If I remember correctly, Dabrownman in the summer goes straight into final proofing. Just ask him how he does it.

3. Less starter

 

Hope this helps Hester. Or atleast given you some ideas to think about.

hreik's picture
hreik

A lot to think about.

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Sometimes my mind is on over drive (as you know) and I type as think.

I feel like a right numpty reading my first idea. You may take out half a dozen "ready"-ies

hahaha

But you get the gist of it.

In all honesty I think you can do with less starter regardless of how you proceed. This will slow things down. Then you can also incorporate (1) or (2).

But Dabrownman who lives in Arizona will be a very good person to ask.

Best of luck Hester.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Here in AZ my kitchen temperature is at least 88F and things happen very fast.  I cut my prefermented flour to 10% from 15% in the winter.  Things happen much faster at 42 F than they do at 36 F.  Depending on the size of the loaf, it take quite a while for the dough to cool down anyways and fermenting is charging right along while in the fridge. You will notice that the volume rise in the fridge happens mainly in the first 4-5  hours but your fridge is hot so it likely takes longer to cool down.

Your really need to keep your fridge below 40 F to to keep bad wee beasties at bay and keep food from spoiling. Your milk must go off pretty fast at 42 F.  The government would fine me if my food warehouses were over 36 F. We kept milk at 30 F and we got fined if the freezer was over 0 F too.

In the winter, i can get away with a shaped retarded proof of 10 hours with 15% prefermented flour but, in the summer, i can't get 8 hours with 10% prefermented flour.  So, I bulk retard instead, for up to 24 hours no matter how much it rises using 10% prefermented flour, then take out the dough, immediately pre-shape it into a boule right out of the fridge and then, 1 hour later, final shape it and bake it off 30 - 45 minutes later. My fridge is 36 F  In the summer,  I usually skip the short bulk ferment on the counter too - it will get plenty of fermenting in while retarded..

The one thing to remember is that if it does over proofed shaped in the fridge you can always shape it right out of the fridge,let it sit for an hour, reshape it and let it finalproof again on the counter to 50% (not 100%) increase in volume at room temperature and bake it off - no worries.  So all is not lost if a shaped loaf over proofs in the fridge. 

For the longest time my shaped loaves were over proofing in the fridge overnight winter and summer.  It took a while to figure out how to fix it.  You will figure it out too!

Today i made a dough that as 50% whole sprouted grain at 80% hydration using 15% pre-fermented flour and i can already tell that it was probably too much levain and will have to cut the planned 21 hour retard down to 12 -16 hours or so if i don't increase the dough flour to get the levain back into the summer range of 10%..... I chose to increase the flour  

Hope this helps and happy baking 

hreik's picture
hreik

so much.  Printing out your reply to save. So helpful.

hester

hreik's picture
hreik

Do you mean the starter (prefermented flour or the levain).  Here's the recipe/ amouonts

levain: 30 gm starter, 95 gm water, 160 flour.  Mix and let sit overnight. (that works fine here).

Dough; 275 gm levain, 600 AP flour, 55 gm Whole wheat, 15 Whole Rye, 20 mg Toasted wheat germ, 16-20 Non-diastatic malt, 13 salt, 450 water.  Levain and salt added after flours, wheat germ, malt and water are mixed and autolysed.

So would you decrease the levain amounts added or the starter? Or both? Thanks

hester

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

and including the what germ and ND malt powder as flour,  then your pre-femented flour of 175 g is about -20% of the total flour in the mix.  That is about 50% more than I would use in the winter and 100% more than I would use in the summer.

Since you fridge is so warm, i would cut the starter amount and the final levain amount in half keeping everything else the same and check to see if the shaped dough still over proofs in the fridge at 8 hours..  What you are looking for is about 85% proof - not doubled and hopefully that will work much better but still might need some tweaking to get to 85% proof in the time you want .  i try to shoot for 85% proof in 10-12 hours because it suits my sleeping schedule better!

Happy Experimenting

hreik's picture
hreik

of information and helpfulness. 

hester

hreik's picture
hreik

The recipe above is not much worse w/o an overnight final fermentation.  This one (with a small addition) from Hamelman's book suffers if not fermented overnight in a cold environment.  Would you do the same thing as you said above? Of put in more levain b/c of all the additions?

Levain: 150 gm AP flour, 188 g water, 30 gm starter; (overnight)

Final dough: 770 gm AP F, 80 gm rye flour, 120 gm toasted sunflower seeds, 60 gm toasted sesame seeds,  soakers (2 of them):  70 gm flax, 210 water,  and 70 gm cracked rye 80 gm water, water 352 (there's water in those soakers), levain 338 gm, salt 23 gm.

This one suffers if not fermented overnight.  And it's denser. So trickier, but you are the guru of loaded breads... Thanks again

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I would cut the pre-fermented flour from 15% to 10% by using 100 g of AP and 125 g of water with 15 g of starter for the levain but I would add the cut water and flour to the dough so the total amount of flour and water is the same, things should take longer so the dough should not over proof in the fridge but it will likely need to be tweaked after you test it out.

You could also add the cut flour water above back to that recipe as well - so the total mounts are the same which is what I would probably do.,

This bread sounds like  one Lucy would come up with for sure!  Hamelman is German so maybe they are related but just don't know it?  I know she would rather be apprenticing with him for sure:-)

hreik's picture
hreik

is a killer.  Really spectacular.  Maybe Lucy wouldn't like it so much b/c believe it or not, it's not dense.  Many Germans prefer dense bread.  It's got lots of seeds in it but still not dense.  It's amazing.