October 11, 2007 - 4:08pm
Curious rising times
I've noticed in Hamelman's book and a few other places that are geared more toward professionals, that in several formulas the proofing and fermentation times are the same. My experience is that in order for the dough to double at both stages, the fermentation time will be about twice as long as the proof. Can any knowledgable person here enlighten me?
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I am making this up as I go, but I don't think it is unreasonable. Both stages involve yeast producing gas. Lets assume that a single yeast cell produces a fixed amount of gas (at a given temperature and assuming food is available) per minute. As fermentation takes place, yeast cells eat and produce gas, but also multiply. The latter happens at an exponential rate.
If during the bulk rise the yeast population became x times as big as it was at the start, then you can assume it takes only half that time to become 2x as big. With the assumption of constant gas production, that would then confirm that the proof would be half as short. This, of course, assumes, that you need as much gas production for the proof as for the bulk, which is roughly true for many recipes.
--dolf
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This is very much complicated to think about. haha
I've never tried recipes where a batch is 3 times the amount of what I can eat in a day.
so Im not sure about the time of fermentation and the proof, but proof is always shorter then fermentation(as in the first firmentation right?)
well, I have always quetioned about the first stage firmentation. Does it always have to double in bulk???