March 21, 2015 - 7:27am
Retarding shaped loafs overnight
I am fermenting my dough overnight . i am not having great success when i shape the loafs as it sometimes takes from 1.5 hours to 3 hours to proof.
I have purchase some boules and need help on how long they must proof for before you can put them into the fridge.
Can you take them straight out the fridge and put them into a hot oven.
Must you cover the boules with plastic when the loafs are retarding in the fridge.
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the temperature of your kitchen. I live in Arizona and many times completely omit the bulk ferment entirely. i just shape after 2 hours of gluten development and put the bagged and shaped loaves int eh fridge for an 8-14 hour retard depending on how big the levain was. The more levain the less time.
I bake straight out of the fridge if the dough is fully proofed or i let it warm up on the counter an hour or 2 if it isn't.
I twill take some experimentation for you to figure out how much levain to use to get a bulk ferment in and a long cold retard too.
Happy retarding
I do it the other way round, I mix and knead the dough, put it in the bowl covered with plastic wrap put it in the fridge for 12 - 16 hours, depending how sour you want your bread.
I take the dough out of the fridge and shape the loafs * so easy when the dough was just out of the fridge * put them in a banneton or bread pan and proof for about 2- 21/2 hours and bake them.
i hear that there are professional bakery that put the shaped loafs into boules and then bake when they have got time in a busy oven. i am baking yeast and leaven loafs.do you proof the loafs to 90% then put in the fridge.
i am trying to save time so i can do the work the day before and then bake when the oven has got to the right temp eg 240 degrees
I am a bit confused as you say, you shape your loafes and than put them into boules
Do you mean you shape them into boules and than put them into bannetons to proof.
Because * Boule * is the round shaped loaf and not a vessel to put the dough into after it is shaped.
Not sure if this helps your specific situation but I've found that my wine fridge (set at 55 F) is a great place to retard for proofing. In addition, the ambient humidity is higher than a traditional refrigerator which makes me less anxious about a shaped loaf drying out. I find, with a sourdough preferment, that I can put it in the wine cabinet overnight and it's ready to go in the AM. It all depends on your recipe, but just thought I'd throw that out. It's a great timesaver.
I often will shape a dough, cover, leave it in the fridge for 12 to 36 hours and bake straight from the fridge. Great results. Though I sometimes do a final rise on the kitchen counter, it feels really easy not to have to pay attention to whether the dough is ready.
fridge as well. High hydration dough would not fair well letting it return to room temp prior to baking and would spread like a fire. Great results and the cold dough straight from the bannetons holds its form.
I bake cold from the fridge as well, and especially with high hydration doughs, I think it produces a better bread than a room temp final proof.
Definitely cover the loaves with some plastic while they're in the fridge so they don't dry out.
It often allows for more flexibility with regards to when they get baked, too. Once I baked a loaf about 9 hours later than I originally planned and it came out fine.
That said, if you do have a dough that's moving really fast during the bulk ferment, keep more of an eye on it.
However it's at room temperature (about 21C right now) and not in the fridge. So now (9:45pm here), I've just mixed/kneaded up 2 lots of dough to make 8 loaves tomorrow morning. They're in 2 containers sitting on the workbench. At 6:45 (ish!) I'll get up, scale/shape them and leave to prove - 6 small loaves in a couche and 2 larger ones in cloth-lined round baskets.
They will take 1-2 hours to prove then into the oven and in the shop before 9:30am.
My fridge is where I keep the mothers/starters...
(Although I make an overnight risen yeasted bread too from time to time - using a tiny fraction of dried yeast compared to the usual 1-hour type of first rise)
-Gordon
I shaped the dough in boules and put them into 2 floured bannetons. The one I put into the fridge straight away and the second one I proofed for 30 min and then put in the fridge. 8am yesterday
the rest of the dough I shaped proofed and baked the same morning. The bake was successful.
this morning at about 4 am the overnight loafs In the bannetons looked good. at 8 am at about 2min before I put the rest of loafs in the oven , I took the shaped loafs in the bannetons out of the fridge they looked very fragile .
When I tried to take the loafs out of the bannetons they both had been sucked into the bannetons.
It pulled the skin away from the loafs and the loafs deflated . These deflated loafs had mush better flavour than the same day loafs but they where flat and dense. The same day loafs had much better volume.
I need some help on over night retarding
for a cold bulk ferment though since you will shape it and let it rise again. I put my shaped loaves in the fridge at 9 PM the night before and bke them at 9 AM the next morning - 12 hours later.,Use straight, non glutenous, rice flour in the baskets too,
does anyone else find that rice flour burns quickly?
I used to have great success with rice flour as non stick however I have taken to baking without the fan and only the lower coils on for a better oven spring. This way the fan doesn't dry the dough out to quickly and the heat is coming from the bottom so the crust doesn't form on top too quickly preventing oven spring. Except I began to find that the rice flour on the loaf was burning quickly. Now I use the flour I feed my starter: 70% bread flour + 24% whole wheat + 6% rye. Since I make up a big batch of this mixture at a time and keep it in a jar I just use it for flouring the bench and banneton too.
Save it for making your shortbread or singin' hinnies ...
-Gordon
on what kind of bread you make, how much leaven is in the dough, and how much, if any, additional yeast you use.
I'm used to retarding my doughs in the fridge, since I can stack the containers, whereas bannetons with shaped breads need much more room, and I can't fit several of those in my (residential) basement refrigerator.
Only Forkish breads and some others that I bake just for us I retard as shaped loaf in the fridge. I produced my share of breads, sticking to the basket and tearing, too, before I learned how much flour to use to prevent it.
The rice/wheat flour mix Chad Robertson suggests for his Tartine breads work well (if generously used), though I dislike the caked on rice flour that makes the bannetons sometimes hard to clean after use. But applying AP flour like Forkish (as seen at YouTube) by swishing a generous amount of flour with your hands along the sides of the basket works just as well.
The best thing to prevent sticking to the basket is additionally sprinkling the bottom with grain flakes, cracked grains or seeds. Looks nice and I never had a sticking issue with long proofing breads again.
Refrigerator air is very dry, therefore doughs or shaped breads have to be well covered with plastic, not to develop a hard skin.
Baking straight from the fridge, if the bread has sufficiently proofed, usually works fine, the baking time might be a little longer.
Karin