August 31, 2011 - 7:08am
Question about typical rising time
What is the typical time it takes the bread to rise after mixing up the bread but before punching it down and seperating it into bread pans for the second rising?
I mixed up the bread yesterday morning. It has been 11 hours but the bread has not even doubled yet and I was expecting it to triple by now.
I have it in a bowl in a warm area with a damp cloth over it. I am a bit disapointed; I expect to be able to bake it this morning. Is it possible to over mix it and keep it from rising?
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If you overmix the dough it will break down, it sounds like one of the following scenarios happened.
a) too much salt and it killed the yeast
b) no yeast added by mistake
c) your yeast is bad
Test your yeast by proofing it in some water + sugar, if it foams you can rule out C.
In this case, I doubt if no added yeast was the problem. Or, to be more accurate, since this is about sourdough (I assume, being in the Sourdough and Starters forum) there wouldn't be packaged yeast anyway. :)
Nonetheless, there is something to that statement.
Depending on conditions like temperature and the activity level of your starter, you should have seen some activity in that period of time.
Tell us a bit about your starter and your method. What do you feed your starter? Under what conditions is it kept when not in active use? How old is it? How active is it when it is fed? How much did you use in the recipe you're using? What recipe are you using, for that matter?
It sounds like your starter may simply be too young/weak to raise dough. Usually mature starters will do something to the dough even if there's something wrong with the starter and that something is undesirable.
I believe you recently posted that your starter was about a week old.
(In general), it really takes a little longer than that before a starter is really ready to start raising dough in a decent and consistent(timewise) fashion.
What you are experiencing is probably somewhat typical and expected, at this stage. Give it 2-3 weeks at least. Even then, it may be a few more weeks until it is most effective in it's ability to raise.
Ok,
It has started to rise a bit so I guess I can just wait and see if it will rise sufecently.
I did use my sourdough starter. I fed it yesterday morning at had plenty of activity out of the yeast.
I don't believe it was the salt, I followed my recipe.
I expect it is becuase the starter is young but I have had good luck with it so far so this was a bit disapointing. We have had soem drastic weather changes in humidity and heat recently so that too I guess could have something to do with it.
If it does not rise sufecently what can I do with it? Make long loafs and bake out of the bread pans? Will I get some acceptable results?
Some have had pretty good luck by kneading in a little instant yeast.
I mixed up some fresh yeast and mixed it in with the bread. So far it looks like it might work but I am getting some large bubbles while rising. Oh well, I m not going to complaine if it rises at all I will be happy.
There are other reasons that could explain why your dough is not rising as expected, but without specific details on the recipe you used and your method, it's difficult to pinpoint the problem or problems.
Rushing a sourdough starter yields poor results nearly always.
Patience is the key word. Consider waiting for nature to take its course, otherwise you lose the benefits of a natural sourdough starter.