July 10, 2018 - 2:12pm
Is an autolyse always a good thing?
An autolyse is done, amongst other things, to make the dough more extensible. This is the reason why the salt is not added into the autolyse as that has a tightening effect on the dough and to some extent so does the starter. But it's got me thinking if certain flours could actually benefit from not doing an autolyse as the nature of the flour is that the gluten is very extendable already, such as spelt. An autolyse also releases sugars from the flour and has an enzymatic effect on the dough but with quick(er) ferementing flours, such as spelt again, perhaps this is not needed.
Or am i mistaken?