Resting and proving at room temperature
Hi all! My first post, so apologies if this is the zillionth time this has been asked, or I've stuck it in the wrong subforum.
My bread making seemed to take a leap forward a couple of months ago when I stopped trying to rest and prove my bread in a warm oven. All recipes say something like 'leave the bread somewhere warm to rest', so I had been jerry-rigging my oven and a thermometer to try and get as close to 25C as I could.
At the same time, I'd got the impression from somewhere that leaving the dough lying around for a bit improves the flavour. So one day I though sod it, and just rested and proved the dough on the kitchen table. I live in the UK, and it was late autumn at the time, so my kitchen was not warm by any means.
I found resting and proving takes maybe 2-3 times longer than in the warm oven, but the dough is *beautiful* to work with afterwards (in terms of shaping). It feels more substantial and less sticky. At the risk of grossing you out, it feels very much like a raw chicken breast, but tacky instead of slippery. It's so much easier to manipulate and shape.
Nowadays I rest and prove my dough in a box in the coldest room in the house. The only potential issue (I'd love your feedback) is that if I shape cobs (as opposed to using a tin), they flatten a lot. Could this be because gravity has longer to do its evil? (To be fair my shaping techniques are probably rubbish.)
So, just putting it out there. Does this work for you? Why do the books always tell you to use a warm place?Cheers
I know there are very knowledgeable people on this site who can tell you much more about the chemistry and reasons for warm versus cool. So I'll just say that almost all of my bread (and I have a little microbakery so I bake a lot of bread) ferments in bulk at least overnight, and some of it proves (after shaping) overnight as well. And this is almost always in the fridge. Crumb, crust and flavour always seem to be better. And it also means that I can use way less yeast (if I use commercial yeast at all) and the bread is much more digestible. Proving bread fast in a warm place makes it rise faster but does little else for the overall quality of the bread, IMHO.
I also used to prove my dough in oven or a warm place, until I read the bread bakers apprentice.
Peter Reinhart explains that the enzymes in the dough do the job of breaking down the starch and releasing all the trapped sugars which creates flavour while the yeast is busy breathing making the dough rise. Warm temperatures will speed up yeast activity but not really the enzyme activity, that's why bread that ferments for longer will taste better. I've started proving my dough slower, overnight in the fridge and I've loved the results. From what I understood the slower fermentation also helps with the gluten development, maybe that's why your dough feels so much nicer. Not sure why it would spread more though.do their work much faster at higher temperatures as well A rough rule if thumb is that enzymes that break starches into sugars and protein chains into more basic amino acids, work twice as fast every 18 F the temperature increases until the temperature is too high and starts to denature them around 105 F it starts but they are completely denatured at 140F to 170F depending on what enzyme we are talking about.
These enzymes are not alive so they aren't metabolizing food or reproducing like yeast and LAB do but they love the warmth just like yeast and LAB do and act like catalysts to make specific chemical reactions happen faster.
Generally speaking colder slows things down and warmth speeds them up - to a point in both directions. What makes the bread dough feel softer, less rubbery and easier to work are the protease enzymes. They break the protein chains that form when two proteins in flour bond together to form gluten. Too much gluten makes the dough springy and rubber bandy and hard to work and the protease enzymes break these gluten protein chains which allows the dough to become more extensible and less elastic. Time, temperature and water is all that enzymes need to work their dough magic. If you want to get into enzymes more here is a link to help. I find them totally fascinating. Knowing what they are and how they work is a great thing to know when making bread recipes and methods or tying to figure out what went wrong:-)
http://www.classofoods.com/page1_7.HTML
or this one http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/enzymes-the-little-molecules-that-bake-bread/
Happy Baking
I assume that these enzymes and the yeast have difference responses curves to temperature, that is, if you understand their response to temperature, you could choose a temperature to emphasise the activity of one over the activity of the other. I don't know what those response curves might look like, but I guess Google could tell me if I had a lifelong urge to find out.
A simple way to emphasise enzymatic activity over yeast activity might also be to use less yeast in your dough?
Do you have an idea of what changes the enzyme activity causes in the final bread? My understanding is that enzymatic activity can break larger molecules down into sugars, resulting in flavour and a good crust, but I might be wrong.
Your remarks about proteases interest me. I get that breaking down proteins (i.e. gluten) can make the dough less elastic. What effect does this have on the bread? Lots of gluten is good, right? Will too much protease activity make the bread more prone to collapse?
Ha! Sorry! Totally asked you questions about the article you linked me to before I'd even read it. Bad habit. Very interesting, thank you.
Even though there is only about 10-14% total protein ( made up of amino acid chains) in flour there are over 30 different ones. I don't even know if we know how many enzymes and amino acids there are but much of the flavor in bread comes from amino acids and sugars that are caramelized during baking. Then there are the sugars, carbs and the action of the yeast and LAB in SD that metabolize food into stuff and even different stuff depending on the food available, hydration, temperature, combinations of each.... and even stress. I do love the science of it all but can understand those that could care less and just want their bread to look and taste great.
The thing about different tepoerature ans the 2 amylase enzymes is that brewers do take advantage f their peap performance and different denaturing temperatures and do a mash hold at 140 F to make sure one does its job before being denaturing at 155 F where another mash hold is done to make sure the other amylase enzyme can finish off turning every bit if starch to sugar before a final denature temperature of 170 F is done. Then when coo the yeast is added to extract as much alcohol as possible. So same thing is going on but at different temperatures with different goals in mind when compared to bread baking,
article, i didn't know this stuff. Happy to be learning more :)
Hmmm. I've tried proving in the fridge before, and on both occasions I didn't notice that any activity had taken place whatsover! Taking it out of the fridge and allowing it to continue at room temperature did get it proving though.
Perhaps my fridge is too cold? :)
depending on the amount of yeast. i usually get a noticeable rise though. i think the idea is to just slow down the yeast for a while while, so hat the fermentation process can happen for longer = better flavour. i also take it out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temp and rise. To be honest i think i might be usng the word "proving" incorrectly...