Refrigeration Proofing

Not a typo - just different tastes. That's why the first time you make a new recipe it's kind of experimental; then you start adjusting to your likes and dislikes.  You have to decide what's correct for your taste, which is why taste tests are kind of silly.  We all have different tastes.

As for refrigeration,  it just slows down the yeast action.  Why?  I don't know.  I stopped making starters, poolishes and haven't noticed any difference, but I don't make sourdough breads.

Most scales don't measure small amounts very well. There are small scales available at Harbour Freight (Cen-Tech) for 10 $. Or continue to use tsps.

As to the over night fridge, a number of things can happen; time flexibility, increase/decrease, yeast/bacteria depending on fridge temp. Short answer.

Jim

If a recipe simply asks for "salt," it's probably referring to table salt since table salt is so common. The density of other salts, like sea salt, can be quite different, so you may need to adjust the amount if you're not using table salt. I've found that 1 tsp of table salt has a mass of about 5.7-6.0 grams, which weighs about 0.20-0.21 oz, so 2 tsp would be about 0.40-0.42 oz. I suspect whoever converted the 2 tsp to 0.5 oz just rounded to the nearest 1/4 oz. The 0.1 ounce difference corresponds to about a half teaspoon of salt, so it's not that much salt.

You seem to be using a less dense salt, so the extra 0.15 oz of salt is almost another teaspoon of your salt. That's why when you weighed it, it looked like so much more than what you usually use.

A "teaspoon" of salt is probably a little over 5 grams (specifically around 5.7 grams), so two teaspoons is around 11 grams. That's about 0.4 ounces. Something went awry, but I'm not quite sure what; maybe confusion between the two weight measures "grams" and "ounces", or maybe too much math "in the head", or maybe premature rounding, or maybe a misread, or ...

My suggestion is to stick to "grams" for everything; don't trip yourself up, don't risk confusion with those pesky "fluid ounces", don't risk "ounces" being a little different in different parts of the globe, and don't deal with nearly so many decimal places with the much larger "ounces". Many digital scales can switch between ounces and grams, sometimes with a separate button and sometimes with an oddball sequence of multiple presses of other buttons best described by the directions that came with the scale. I've set mine to "grams" and just leave it there all the time.

I find measuring salt by weight much more accurate for different kinds of salt. "Sea salt" for example tends to have larger crystals which don't pack as tightly, so a "teaspoon" of sea salt and a "teaspoon" of table salt are noticeably different. But a "gram" of sea salt is the same as a "gram" of table salt, so measuring by weight means one less thing to worry about.

Many people judge that much longer rises give significantly better flavor; that's a big part of the reason to use pre-ferments (biga, poolish, etc.). You can get pretty much the same result without a pre-ferment by just arranging for the main rise to take a loonnngggg time. Problem is, if you let the dough rise for say 15 hours, it will swell and swell and swell and then eventually collapse when the yeast runs out of food. So what's needed is some way to "slow down" the yeast a whole lot. It turns out yeast gets quite a bit slower at colder temperatures (yeast goes completely dormant at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit).

So the thing to do is just stick the dough in the refrigerator to rise very slowly. This is a standard technique that can be used on pretty much any bread (whether or not the recipe explicitly mentions it). It's called "retard" or "retarding".

I make a lot of my weekly breads using 1 c flour-1 c water and 2-4tbsp of my starter (right from the refrigerator) as a pre-ferment. I mix this up and let it sit on the counter anywhere from 4-24 hours.It gets nice and bubbly,yeasty smelling and rises some.I often mix the pre-ferment up before bed and make bread the next morning (8-10hours later?). The next morning, this is mixed into the other bread ingredients.

Throwing the preferment in the refrigerator just slows it down. I imagine you could probably use it up to 48 hours later! It adds great flavor to the bread and if the starter is mature enough, raises the bread quite nicely without additional yeast. By mature, I mean a starter that has been around more than a few months and has developed a balanced,dense culture of yeasts.A newly established starter may have a little more difficulty with this and may need some instant yeast to help boost the rise.

A pre-ferment is a way to add great flavor to breads. There are other ways of doing this but the idea is to give the yeasts time to digest a portion of the starches and release their flavorful alcohols and esters without digesting everything and causing the dough to deteriorate into a glob.So any method used affects the balance between desired loaf quality and yeast digestion. Yeast digestion is affected by time,population,temperature and available food and other ingredients.Salt,spices,honey and sugar can adversely affect yeast!

 If it is warm in the kitchen, I had better use the pre-ferment by the 8-13 hour mark or it flattens out and hootches over. If you still try and use it in a loaf, it will also cause a release of undesirable enzymes which will weaken the gluten.You will end up with a really good tasting but flat,damp loaf. Not even good for pizza dough!

SO put it in the refrigerator for 4 hours.... or not. 

 You say "PO-TAY_TO", I say  "PO-TAH-TO"

Sourdough fermenting products different acids.   One of the acids does better at room temp and the other does better at about 48 F.    Research it.