Bulk sourdough making
Hello everyone,
Im new to posting on this site but have been reading a lot on here over the past year. I have been working for a large supermarket as a baker for the past 4 years and for an independent bakers for the last 6 months. Last month an opportunity came my way to open my own bakery, exciting!!!. Making every day breads, rolls, doughnuts, baguettes all that stuff ive been doing for years so im not concerned about that, but.......... What i am trying to get my head around is making sourdough on a large scale. Ive been making sourdough at home for a couple of years and ive got it exactly how i like it, 6 hours bulk fermentation at room temp stretching and folding every 30 minutes followed by 16 hours overnight prove in the fridge, 1 hour at room temp and then in to a 240c oven turned down to 210c for 35 minutes. My issue is that i dont have the time to do that once the bakery is up and running as i will be doing it all on my own (am i mad?!?!)
So does anyone know of another way of producing 8 to 10 large sourdough loaves (scaled at 950g) a day that i can fit in to my work schedule? Bare in mind that i start work at 3am, shop opens at 9am and closes at 2:30pm. I will have provers and a large walk in fridge at my disposal.
Any help on this would be very much appreciated.
by doing hourly folds instead of every 30 minutes and skipping the counter proof? You might even want to go down to 3 or 4 folds every 30 minutes and shorten your bulk depending on how fast your dough rises.
I am assuming you are dealing with one or two big batches so you aren’t dealing with individual loaves.
yes i will be dealing with quite a lot from the start of the day. Im wondering if there is a method of not doing any folds at all? Ive only made it at home and only made a maximum of 2 loaves at a time. In the bakery i will have a reasonably large mix of sourdough, approx 16kg. 16kg bulk fermenting!! How would i go about folding that monster? Or would i need to scale up all the loaves separately and fold them individually?
What i would like to know Is there a way of speeding the process up using professional equipment? I will have humidity control and temperature control on prover and also temperature control on a large walk in fridge.
i rent a professional bakery once a week to make my breads for a local market and do 100 x 750g loaves a night. 2 of which are sourdoughs. Each 15kg mix goes into a large oiled box and stretched and folded by hand. For sourdoughs i do 3/4 folds every 30 - 45 minutes or so. I like loose high hydration and dont want to tighten gluten that much so i tend to leave rest after mix for 45 minutes and then do 3 stretch and folds and leave til cutting time. A short bench rest and then shaping.
what percentage of starter are you using? Are you using a prover to speed up the process at all?
Sounds great, good luck with the whole thing. I think Drogon is the man to seek out on here :)
ahahah spot on mate!
Are you opening up in Wales ?
i am indeed, west wales, lampeter in fact.
South Wales me.. next time I'm in lampeter I'll look out for your bakery. Good luck.