Experimenting with NY Deli style sourdough rye

My wife has fallen in love with BBA's NY Deli rye recipe. It's soft like Wonder bread, but has a huge amount of flavor. You get the nice rye flavor, a little sour tang, and some sweetnes from the onions. Then of course is the caraway. It's a fantastic recipe.

I don't always have time to make it, so I thought I'd try lengthening some of the ferments to see what happened. The recipe normally goes:

1. Add flour/water to mother starter. Sweat onions, add to starter.

2. Ferment 4 hours.

3. Refrigerate overnight.

4. Remove starter from fridge, make dough, adding starter.

5. Ferment 90 minutes or until double.

6. Shape, ferment 90 minutes or until dough crests pans by 1".

7. Bake.

So, to fit my time schedule, I did the following changes:

1. Add flour/water to mother starter.

2. Ferment 10-11 hours (built the starter before work).

3. Sweat onions (didn't have time before work).

4. Make dough, adding starter and onions.

5. Ferment until double.

6. Shape, ferment just until dough reaches pan lips (took less than 60 minutes).

7. Refrigerate overnight. By morning the loaves had crested the pan by 1".

8. Remove from fridge and bake. I didn't get to bake until after work, so the loaves were in there about 18 hours.

The result?

Delicious! Nice, sour tang from the extended ferment. Next time I may refrigerate the loaves earlier, since I got such a nice rise in the fridge overnight.

-Joe