July 23, 2010 - 12:48pm
Retarding the dough overnight.. How long do you wait after taking the dough out of the fridge?
I've got a question abiout retarding a dough in the fridge and the time it supposedly saves..
How long do you wait before baking once you take your dough out of the fridge? Most of the time I have to let it cool down and benching and proofind requires more time, so the "time saving" really isn't there..
Anything I'm missing?
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If your bread has already been shaped you don't wait at all and bake it immediately. In any case, retarding has nothing to do with saving time, it is used for flavor development, and to a certain degree, for scheduling.
I agree ... bake it right out of the fridge. There are some real advantages to going from the fridge to the oven.
I take this one step further, I cover the loaf, which has been placed on a preheated stone, with a stainless steel bowl, the interior of which has been sprayed with cold water, for the first 10 to 15 minutes of the bake.
In my exoerience this works as well as the many home oven steaming techniques discussed here.
Greg
I retatrd all of my baguette dough over night, and I can bake it straight from the fridge if it is already shaped, but I like to divide it, round it, then retard it. When I take it out in the morning, I will round it again, bench it for about 20 minutes then shape it. after that it only needs a short proof. When I bake it, ity seems underproofed, but it gets a wonderful oven spring. As far as my formula when making the dough to be retarted, I use less yeast then usual and slightly more salt. and I use iced water to mix with. The yeast will still be actve in the fridge, even though only slightly, so I dont want it going out of control. When I mix, I stop the mix before it has reached full gluten development, the overnight in the refer will further develop gluten and if it were to go to the chill fully developed, when it came out it would be over. I use this method every day in the bakery and it produces beautiful bread, with a deep red crust, great oven spring, and a crumb structure like sourdough. The flavor is very complex from the chill as well.
hi Richawatt, your cold retarding method sounds great! I have been cold retarding my dough similarly but could never get a good (if any) oven spring, I wonder if I've overproofed my dough (I need to shape the dough and let it have the second rise after refrigeration, for about 1-1.5 hours). But when I checked the crumb, I thought there were dense areas or areas of tiny holes beside relatively big holes, which i suspected to be a sign of under not over proofing.
How long do you second proof your dough after you shape it?
cheers!
Liming
I take things quite literally at times and have been frustrated about the retarding of the dough when I want to spend the day baking bread, not the weekend! I did not know you could bake right out of the frig if shaped. Does that go for sourdough as well? With all the feed the starter, make the dough, stretch and fold and in the frig and out and shape and rise and bake, I am about ready to kill my starters. LOL! Andrea
...first and then refigerate, or will the rise while the loaves are cooling suffice?
FF
Interesting thread. I always let my French bread rise in the fridge but not shaped as I don't usually have room for two shaped loaves. I take it out in the morning, shape it and bake it a couple of hours later after it's risen again. But I wonder if I can put it in the oven earlier, perhaps an hour after shaping it and get the additional rise by way of the oven spring there. I think I'll try that. I have some loaves to bake this morning.
Richard
How long between the time you take it out the fridge and baking?
Well, this morning I took the bread out of the fridge and formed two loaves and turned the oven on. It takes about 45 minutes for my oven to reach 550 so I put the loaves in about an hour after taking them out of the fridge. Sprayed them with water twice (when I put them in and at two minutes - I'm baking them on an oven stone), dropped the temperature to 450 and baked them for 10 more minutes switching the oven to convection mode for the last 10 minutes. Came out great.
Richard
I believe the short answer to Freq. Flyer's question would be (per Hammelman's book) to put it in the fridge right after shaping and leave it for 16 hours, +/-.
He mentions conditions which may change that rule - retarder temp and ambient cold temps among them but generally, for the home baker this would work.
Happy baking, good luck!
Sue
I've got to get Hammelman's book.
Loren