Lot's of sour dough questions
Hello everyone,
This is my first post in a long time. I attempted to make sour dough loafs last year but it always gave a really sharp acidic taste that I really disliked. I decided to give it another shot .
So I'm attempting to make some basic whole wheat loaves.
1) What is the minmium temperature the sourdough ferment at? Last time I placed the dough into a 4C fridge for 24 hours it was just a dense blob .
2)I'm going for a 50% whole wheat levain ( 68% hydration) approximatively how long of a bulk fermentation and proof am I expecting? ( 68% hydration )
3) If I were to decrease the levain to 50% to 25% about how many hours am I expecting it to extend the bulk fermentation(@ room temp)?
4) If memory serves me correct a firm starter is best used when tripled in size ?
5)
I'm thinking of having an ice water bath in an ice cooler ( dough in a glass bowl floating on water with a handful of icecubes )so during the bulk fermentation It will the temperature will start from around 4 C then slowly rise to room temperature hopefully by the time it is fully fermented , anyone tried this? Hope this works well.
I plan to do the same thing for the final proofing. Hopefully I can get this right so bulk fermentation is 24 hours while final proof works out to about 12 hours.
I'm trying to separate the steps as far as possible so I can hopefully have 1 day for mixing and kneading and bulk fermentation, 2nd day shape and final proof, 3rd day in the morning : toss it straight in the oven . all while keeping minimum time a day working on the dough.
Thanks in advance,