Proofing Temperature

Although I haven't posted much lately, I still have been baking. The last 3 most recent bakes have been interesting. Bake 1 (about 5 weeks ago) was for Thanksgiving. I made 2 batches of SD dough using a modified Reihart BBA basic sourdough ... a little different than what I've posted here before, I omitted the small amount of rye flour, and instead of "regular WW" I used KAF white whole wheat (WWW) flour. So the BBA recipe calls for 20.25oz of flour, in this bake (and the other 2 that I am mentioning here) I used about 5oz of the KAF WWW and the remainder was KAF bread flour (BF). In my modified recipe I also use 15.2oz of water ... I haven't computed the hydration level but it's fairly high. My kneading approach has settled on a total of 15 minutes ... 5 min of kneading, 5 min of rest, 5 min kneading, 5 min rest, 5 min kneading, done.

So the Thanksgiving bake went very well, a  2 day bulk ferment in the refrigerator, splitting into 4 dough balls, shaping, resting in the fridge overnight, shaping into 4 batards, then overnight into the fridge again, then at room temp for the oven to warm, then scored and into the oven for a hearth bake at 500dF with steam. Pre and final shaping were very easy, the dough was smooth, elastic, and not overly wet. I was able to consistently get an excellent oven spring and grigne. Flavor was excellent, crumb was very nice, etc. A good result all around and I was satisfied.

Next bake was last week. I made a single batch of dough but was in a bit of a hurry so I fermented overnight in the fridge, then split and shaped. I left the shaped balls and put them in a warm oven to rise, then shaped and final proofed in a warm oven (80dF). The dough was quite difficult to pre and final shape, the dough balls were wet and the gluten seemed very loose ... I was not able to develop any tension on the outer surface of the shaped batards. I got sidetracked with something and when I came to check the loaves they had overproofed. I did the usual hearth bake at 500dF with steam and got virtually no spring. Flavor was flat (but not bad), no grigne, and overall the results were not satisfying.

On friday I made a batch of dough, cold fermented until sunday night, split and shaped sunday night, and cold proofed 2 batards in the fridge overnight. Getting ready to bake now. Pre and final shaping were easy, dough was firm, elastic, and not "wet" or loose.

So here's my observation. I can't warm proof my dough or it gets wet and loose and I am unable to develop gluten tension. If I keep the dough cold, the gluten seems to be fine and the dough seems easy to handle.

What's going on here? Is this the SD culture digesting the gluten? Or does the warmer temperature result in looser gluten strands? For now my plan to to always go with the long, cold, rise; and cold shaping/proofing.

I looks forward to learning.

Cheers-

Dave