July 3, 2015 - 7:55pm
%100 sourdough Epi -- cold retardation VS no cold retardation
Dear Freshloafers
Does anyone have any insight into the affect cold fridge retardation on oven spring/rising. I recently made two variations of a %100 sourdough Epi. All steps were the same (I can explain method if need be) except I set aside half the dough to retard in the fridge for over 8hr. The result was that the dough left int the fridge got a better rise. See the pictures below. big difference. Any thoughts?
Pic 1: No cold retardation
Pic 2: Cold retardation
Pic 3: comparison (the middle one is the non-cold retarded Epi, notice how much higher the others are)
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1. The cold retarding in the fridge were better proofed. Proofing is difficult, if not the most difficult, part of bread baking and easily over done. But retarding in the fridge might have helped.
2. Perhaps the ones that were baked from the fridge didn't crust over as quickly as the other ones therefore not preventing oven spring. It's difficult to introduce steam to modern ovens and if not enough steam then the top might bake too quickly. But the cold ones would be more moist and therefore preventing this from happening as quickly as the other ones.
But both look really nice. Great shaping!
Since it takes some time to chill the dough down to refrigerator temperature, there is some additional bulk fermentation that takes place while cooling down. You then shaped while cool and proofed the dough for the second bake. I suspect that the first batch was not fully proofed when it went into the oven,. Perhaps you were running up against a deadline and tried to rush things a bit. They both are very impressive.
Thanks for comments. here is my method. any more comments based on my method would be helpful as well. Thanks in advance
Below is the basic outline of my method for four 350g Epi (in two batches)
Ingredients: in bakers percentage (and in grams)
Organic hard Canadian bread flour: 100 (707g)
Water: 75 (530g)
French unprocessed Ile de Re sea salt: 3 (21g)
Ripe starter: 15 (106g)
Homemade malted Organic rye powder: 5 (35g)
Day 1:
8:15am - expand/refresh starter.
6:00pm - Make Levain (1/3 of the flour content, 1/3 of the water content, and all the ripe starter). At this point I also mix another1/3 of the flour content and 1/3 of the water content for a very long autolyse.
Day 2
5:20am: Create dough - Mix levain, autolyse and final 1/3 of flour content, 1/3 of water content, salt and Malt.
5:45am: Stretch & Fold (S&F)
6:10am: S&F
6:35am: S&F
7:00am: Final S&F - divide dough into two batches. Put one batch of dough into the fridge for cold retardation (see below).
7:10am batch 1: pre shape into logs.
7:20am batch 1: shape baguette style
7:30am batch 1: Cut into epi & Bake at 500F with steam for 15min. Remove steam tray, vent and reduce heat to 450F and bake for 13 min
5:30pm batch 2: remove from fridge & pre shape into logs.
5:40pm batch 2: shape baguette style
6:35pm batch 2: cut into epi & bake at 500f with steam for 15min. Remove steam tray, cent and reduce heat to 450F and bake for 12min.
Thanks
MJ Sourdough
I don't know what your kitchen temperature is or that of your refrigerator but the proof time seems short.
From pre-shape to bake for batch 1 was 20 min; hardly long enough for the dough to relax, let alone rise.
From pre-shape to bake for batch 2 was an hour (after a 9 hr retard that allowed at least one hour and perhaps 2 hours or more of additional fermentation time before things went dormant). You have to be the judge about when it is ready to bake, but I would suggest that the first batch could have proofed longer without much risk of collapsing.
Doc Dough
Thanks for the feedback on my method. Very useful. I will try out some of your commendations withs regards to the longer proof times.
Thanks again
MJ Sourdough