Power Outage & My Dough
I was in the middle of making bread. I had put the bread in my pan to rise, put in the microwave to raise faster, which I never did before, turned my oven on to preheat. Bread was in the microwave about 30 minutes, and the power went out. Took the bread dough out of the microwave waited about 15 minutes to see if the power would come on which it didn't, so stuck it in the fridge. The power came on about 10 minutes ago, and now it's after 10PM, and I don't want to do anything with the bread now as I have to go to bed early tonight as I'm having a test done at the hospital very early tomorrow So, I don't know what to do. Take it out of the fridge tomorrow and bake it right away or wait a few hours until it warms up. This never happened before, so don't know exactly what to do, and if the dough is ruined. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
I would knock it down and just put it in a covered,oiled container in the refrig and leave it there til you come home (tomorrow afternoon?) You sound like you have enough to worry about to get thru your day. Then take it out,shape,proof(may take a little longer due to the cold) and bake.
Are you in Wisconsin? We just had a wicked storm come through.
Good luck!
Thanks for the reply. I llive in Georgia. We had some rain & thunder, but wasn't a bad storm. Thanks for replying.
If it only had 30 min of proofing when you put it in the refrigerator, it probably had not risen very much and won't rise much more after it cools to refrigerator temperature. I would probably just cover it, put it in a plastic bag to keep down evaporation, and let it go overnight. In the AM, take it out and look at it. If it is still in need of some proofing, let it sit out for a while; before you bake it if it looks ready to go, just bake it; if it has fallen, slap it around a little, reshape, and reproof at room temp and bake it when it is ready.
for getting back to me on this. Now, next time will know what to do.
=== If it only had 30 min of proofing when you put it in the refrigerator, it probably had not risen very much and won't rise much more after it cools to refrigerator temperature. ===
Actually, most breads will rise quite nicely in the fridge. The yeasts generate enought internal heat to keep growing for some time - generally, they run out of steam just as the bread is fully risen. Often the flavor is much better after an overnight rise as well.
I spray the inside of the plastic garbage bag (clean!) with water from a mister, then tuck the pans or peel into the bag (generally with 1 or 2 tall glasses to prop up the plastic and keep it from draping on the dough) and put them on the lower fridge shelf. Next morning turn on oven to heat, take out of fridge, and bake when oven hot. I agree with Hamelman that whether you let the risen dough warm up before baking or not is stricly preference; it doesn't seem to make too much difference to the final result.
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Thanks for your response. My bread did not rise all that well. I probably waited too long. It's ok, but not great, so I decided to do it over today but decided on a different recipe. The new batch looks great. Haven't cut into it yet.
Hi, I am glad for this information. I have a challenge much like thunderstorm and power outage, with a recipe of no-knead dough that is bulk fermenting in the fridge, with a weight of 1,2 kg. We had a break in power last night unexpectedly, which has called for our power supplier to notify us that tomorrow they will shut down our power for most of the day (7 hours presumably). Fortunately the power came on, before there was no battery power left for the fridge to still be on. In the mean time we have what we call ''load shedding'' times during every day, 2 hours at a time, which can be one, two or three times. At present it is twice a day. So say for instance the power will go off tomorrow at 09:00 and is promised to go on at 16:00. Yet if we are scheduled for ''load shedding''-time from say, 16:00-18:00, (which has happened before), we would have power out for 9 hours. If they do fix the problem before nightfall, we' have power again from 18:00, when the load-shedding time is over. If not (and that has happened before, as well), we might have a continued power-out until well into the next morning after that. We have everything off, including the fridge then at night, with such long power outs, it seems to keep most things cool. Our generator can run the oven, but not the fridge and the oven at the same time, if I need to bake bread. I have done baking in such a situation, early in the day and then kept the fridge off, and I've lost food items from the fridge that way. It is approaching noon and we have a sweltering temperature already of 33 C (91.4F) and rising. I don't want to postpone, because we have another ''load-shedding time at 16;00-18:00 today and if we have a storm we might have a power-outage unexpectedly again. I am going to bake right away and fortunately I can, although I already baked a piece this morning when it was much cooler. What should I do in the future? Load-shedding is going to continue. The power-outage problem has not been dealt with permanently and seems to continue as well, for some time now. I am still a beginner home-baker. When we had that long power outage before, I still had a bread machine, but I had to dispose of it, the rudder broke. I then used a different recipe. Now that I am only working with my hands, I do like the no-knead large beginners recipes and this large quantity, yet can switch to just one bread. I did not plan to bake twice in one day. The principle of not kneading to knead the dough, but fermenting it overnight for at least 8-12 hours, works well for me, although I am still learning to have success with it. I would like to stick to these recipes, but what do I do, if I cannot bake. I can ferment it at room temperature for I think 20 hours, then I either need to bake or put it in the fridge, but what if there is no power?. I live in South Africa and it is now the height of summer with thunderstorms very regularly. Thanks. Miranda
I actually found the answer to this problem, which is more a power-outage problem, than a bread problem, on your blog. Reading çan't get a rise out of my wholewheat bread. A recipe that is a much simpler, smaller quantity and from it's characteristics a no-knead bread recipe. Thanks for all the good advice on this blog.