March 19, 2021 - 2:46am
overproofing tartine recipe in fridge for12-18 hours
Hi,
This may have been posted a million times but I can't find it.
I use the tartine recipe with 50% wholewheat and 50% white. 80% hydration. (800g water...so guess it's actually higher? maths not my strong point).
I make levain night before. start loaves in morning. Ready for 3-4 hour prove by lunchtime. I stick them in the fridge till the evening and bake then. I'd really like to leave them overnight but when I do this they seem to be overproofed.
Resulting in little oven spring when I bake (dutch oven)Anyone have experience of this? Am I being too hopefui leaving them all night?
Felix
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Hey there :)
The same exact thing happened to me once, and can come about because of two reasons:
1) Your fridge temp is not cold enough
2) Your flour is milled fresh and the enzymic activity is still very strong even after you put it in the fridge.
My one was the first option. Usually when you have your fridge full of products, you need to have it cooler than normal because the products on the back of the shelf can block off the cool air coming to the front.
If your bread if overproofing in the fridge then yes your fridge isn’t cold enough. Place a glass of cold water in your fridge on the shelf in the location that you would proof your dough. Several hours later take the temperature of your glass of water, what is it? If it is 4ºC or lower then your dough, once at this temperature, will stop fermenting. Keep in mind that it will take several hours for your warm dough to cool to this temperature. I keep my fridge at 3ºC in order to ensure that the shelf I have my dough on is 3ºC and doesn’t overproof in the fridge. So far I’ve had no overproofing issue during cold retard. If I have overproofed that has been because it went to far with bulk and the initial bench proof.
Benny
The Tartine recipe calls for a young levain only a few hours old and not an overnight one. I feed it the night before but make the levain in the morning. It is ready to go mid-day and goes in the fridge in the evening. So maybe try that to see if it makes a difference. The whole grain is probably helping to speed things along as well.
Thank you all.
so what happens between midday and the evening ?
The levain gets added to water and the flour is mixed in and after a few folds and around four hours of bulk ferment they are shaped and retarded for 12 to 15 hours.
Yes that’s exactly what I’m trying to achieve
Well I think you identified the right thing. Put a thermometer in the fridge and realises it’s temp wasn’t low enough. Left a loaf in last night and baked first thing in the am. Worked great
thanks.
Yes this is such a common issue with cold retard, most people’s refrigerators aren’t quite as cold as needed for a cold retard that doesn’t allow much fermentation to go on. Glad your issue has been solved.
Benny