March 20, 2016 - 2:30pm
Cold Fermentation - Questions
Howdy,
I was doing a short term poolish - 6 to 8 hours, and was going to bake tonight. Something came up - bail out tonight. So, I want to finish the dough, and toss it in the fridge to cold ferment for ... 24 hours or so.
I'm using dry active yeast. Should I use cold water (for remaining mix with poolish), knead and chill it? Or, should I still use the warm water to react the yeast. I think - last time I did that - the dough exploded out of the bowl in the fridge - messy.
Any quick tips would be appreciated.
Thanks
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No problem. If the poolish is ready, combine all the ingredients as usual, mix and put it in the fridge. Stretch and fold a few times will help. I baked a loaf last week with this technique and it was excellent, one of my best loaves yet. It was based on Tom Cat's Semolina Filone recipe from this site. The main dough was 50% all purpose flour and 50% whole wheat flour, and no semolina.
to activate the yeast, when it is dissolved, drop in a few ice cubes to cool and get the amount of water you need.
If 24 hours in the fridge, I might be tempted to skip the yeast in the dough and rely on the poolish yeast to multiply and raise the loaf.
mini and semi: Thanks for the replies. I'm leaning toward mini's suggestion to skip the yeast, since it will be ... maybe 30 hours before I can get back to it. The only time I did a cold, I had mess. I don't know if it was the added yeast or the warm temperature whereby the fridge chill down wasn't fast enough to halt the more rapid reaction.
many thanks!
overall using bread flour. I let it sit in the fridge for 48 hours after developing the gluten with no real bulk ferment after the 2 hours of slap and folds. Just pre-shaoe it cold when it comes out of the fridge and then final shape it 1 hour later Then proof and bake as usual. No worries