Help wanted
I am posting for the first time. However I have been registered in this wonderful place almost 2 years now. Like all of you a love bread. I love baking it, sharing and most of all eating it. I am just a home baker, don't have fancy oven or even a brick one. All I have is a gas fired oven that get the most heat at the top, while the lower shelve barely heat. However I manage to get nice breads using a cast iron Le Crouset casserole. Using it with the lid on for the first 10 minutes, I manage to get a nice and crisp crust. I use I sourdough starter, that was given to me by someone from US and is the "Red Sea Starter".
Well, the reason I decided to post today is to ask a question. Today I prepared some dough so I can bake tomorrow. I am letting the dough rest in the fridge overnight. My problem is, the dough has already doubled. What I had in mind was, have it have a first rise in the fridge, then tomorrow morning I would let it come to room temperature; nock it down; pre-shape; shape and let it rise again.
Now I don't know if it is going to work. Won't it over-ferment? Should I do what I had planed for tomorrow morning, tonight?
I live in UK and it is past 8:00 pm.
Thank you for any advice.
Lucia
Hey Lucia,
It sounds like your SD starter is really doing its job!
Have you considered shaping it and putting it back into the fridge, possibly nudging up the cold in your fridge, to further slow the process?
Hope this helps,
Freerk
Thank you Freerk, I did just that now. The starter is very health indeed and always amazes me because I am not that careful with it most of the time. Sometime I forget to feed it for a few weeks but as soon I feed, it is all there, ready to do it's job.
I M H O I think no harm will be done. You can do a degassing now and and refrigerate (retard) and continue as planned tomorrow. Try it. What do you have to lose?
Ford
Hi Ford, thank you for your reply. I decided to go for what Freerk suggested. I hate wasting good ingredients. Tomorrow I will let it come to room temperature and bake. I am sure it is going o nice bread. I have to be positive, haven't I ?
Hi Ford, thank you for your reply. I decided to go for what Freerk suggested. I hate wasting good ingredients. Tomorrow I will let it come to room temperature and bake. I am sure it is going o nice bread. I have to be positive, haven't I ?
Sorry for the double posting. Can't remove now.
I second and third what Freerk and Ford already told you. The similar thing happened me once....or even worse; I prepared the dough and cold retarded overnight to bake next day. But when I was just about to start pre-shaping +shaping the dough, something came up and I had to go out whole day. So I quickly S & F to de-gass and put it back to the fridge, repeated the same thing again when I came home late at night. The following day, I shaped and baked the dough, expecting I'd end up with a total failure with over-fermented dough, but surprisingly, it baked beautifully. To be fair, it had more acidity than my usual sourdough and maybe slightly less oven-spring, but it did have very good flavour!
So don't worry, and GOOD LUCK!
And lastly, welcome another fellow UK TFLer! :)
best wishes,
lumos
Hi Lucia,
like others have said, I don't think there's anything to worry about. I have a toddler and I often have to leave everything halfway through, for god knows how long. I only got my first sourdough starter going a few weeks ago, until then I just used active yeast, and active yeast dough tends to rise much quicker than sourdough. (Although I suppose it depends on the starter and quantity used.)Even if I did everything correctly and used half the specified amount of yeast, I'd often stick the dough in the frige overnight to find that it spilled over the top of the bowl in the morning. I'd also sometimes punch it down more than once. The worst thing that ever happened to me is that the end product would come out a little dry.
In your case I think all that would happen is that your loaf may end up a bit sourer than you're used to. Also if you've already shaped your loaves, they may rise a bit too much by tomorrow morning, so you may have to punch them down and shape them again.
It might help to push it right to the back wall of your fridge as that's where it's the coldest.
Can I just say it takes a lot of dedication to bake bread in a dodgy oven! I'd be apprehensive with cakes, no mind bread. Keep it up!
Hope this helps,
Faith