dough doesn't rise after shaping!
Hey friends!!
Well, the title says it all, but let me explain more!
I've been baking for almost about a year now, and one of my favorite breads so far has been the Italian Bread, [1] found on this website...
Now, I've made this bread around 12~13 times now, with no problems, and it always turned up amazing, until the last three tries...
1st Failed Attempt: Made the dough with malt powder (which is quire rare in Iran, by the way), it doubled in size nicely during primary fermentation, also rose great when I punched it down. Now when I tried to shape it, it had TONS of, I repeat, TONS of little bubbles around, I thought to myself, "Hey, that's good right? open crumb ftw!" so I deflated the dough a little as I shaped it, and I set it aside to rise.... Well, guess what, it didn't rise! I left it out for 3 hours, and it didn't even show signs of life! I decided to put it in the fridge and see if it rises in there, and well, as you can already tell, nothing happened :(
2nd Failed Attempt: I decided to make it without malt powder, thinking it will rise nicely like the other times, and, uh, well, it didn't rise after shaping.... Weird....
3rd Failed Attempt: I decided to make the bread with more preferment (4 cups flour - 3 cups water - 1/4tsp yeast) and it still didn't rise after shaping
Now this is fairly new to me, why should the dough rise during its primary fermentation, but doesn't even show signs of life after shaping? Has anyone had this problem before? Any idea what I might be doing wrong?
This has really got me depressed!!
Thanks!