August 27, 2018 - 11:30am
Warm bulk, cold bulk and then cold retarding......
This might be a totally idiotic train of thoughts but my recent bakes with ciabatta and baguette got me wondering....
I appear to get more easily open crumb when I use a warm bulk combined with a cold bulk........
If I were to do this with let's say normal white SD loaf and do a warm bulk until bubbles show (as in ciabatta and baguette formula) and then cold bulk.over night.....get the dough out pre-shape cold dough, 30 min bench rest....shaping and in banneton...back in the fridge for retarding... bake...
I am really intrigued by this and was wondering whether to just have a go at this....
Does anyone have any thoughts on this and sorry if this is a stupid question...
Kat
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I've had some success with this. I think one of the keys is ensuring that enough yeast growth has occurred during the warm bulk, and that the cold bulk and retard is not too cold.
I think there are two reasons that cold bulk and/or retard can help with big bubbles.
1. The extended time allows the dough to become more extensible. As long as the yeast is strong enough to make the dough expand, it will expand more if it is more extensible.
2. A cold dough is easier to pre-shape/shape than warm dough, and is also a bit stiffer. There is less likelihood of damage being done during the process with cold stiffer dough.
My two cents.
thank you for sharing your thoughts...
This goes along with my thinking as with the ciabatta and the baguette the idea was to let the bulk go far enough to start development with bubbles and I've found in particular that in my wine cooler at 5Cish the dough does not rise massively but still has nice bubbles and is very soft when I got it out...
With the baguettes I was surprised how quickly the coldly pre-shaped boules relaxed just with the 30 min bench rest ready to be shaped so I cannot see why this cannot be done with let's say a batard...
The amount of padding the baguettes received was crazy and still I had a good crumb!
I will go ahead with an experiment on this...Do you have a particular formula that you tried this with? Kat
I kept my dough warm for the first bit of the bulk and left it out on the counter overnight (the temperature dropped very low that night). I shaped in the morning and left the dough in the fridge while I was at work. Baked straight from the fridge that night. It turned out pretty good. It was my mid week bake post.
Hope it works out for you!!
Ru
I kept my dough warm for the first bit of the bulk and left it out on the counter overnight (the temperature dropped very low that night). I shaped in the morning and left the dough in the fridge while I was at work. Baked straight from the fridge that night. It turned out pretty good. It was my mid week bake post.
Hope it works out for you!!
Ru
making this bread and it amazes me...did you do this with your mainly white loaf Ru and thank you for sharing....Kat
Make him a loaf of bread every week for $10. Works really well for him, except the standing in line of a few hours, and he said the bread s consistently fairly good:-) Sometime it is hot and sometimes cold in the line depending on the weather and time of year. Both seem to work fine though bread wise:-)
and must be a Hobbit! I am a bit more like Gollum in search for the ring in this case the perfect SD formula.......ha, ha....
I fathom that your meaning is that many roads lead to Rome.... ..or otherwise to the Tartine bakery, if your dwelling is in SF! Happy baking...
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56837/abe-inspired-mid-week-bake
my pleasure Kat :)
and I have another look at your blog.......I've started now with a Champlain and we shall see...all good fun...... Kat
Based on what we were talking about in the other topic and with the information I get here I intend to start testing long BF using the refrigerator. Maybe I can even fit one or two baking during the week. If at the counter at a temperature of about 20 ° C the BF could have lasted approximately 14-15 hours, I wonder how much I could delay it using the refrigerator. To experiment!
I am using the Champlain formula for this as this is a loaf that I am most familiar with and kind of know what I am looking for judging from the dough and not the clock...
I mixed dough...1 hour AL
I made starter in the morning 50/50/50 and needed approx. 3 1/2 hours in the proofer at 78F
Added leaven and used Rubaud and a bit of slap and fold...rest for 20 min then added salt and more water to make approx. 70% ish hydration a bit more than the 304g as per formula, I tend to mix leaven ONLY first to give the beasties a good start without the salt...
bit more Rubaud and slap and folds and back into the prooper aiming for a TD at 75Fish..
I will let it not FULLY bulk but until I see some little bubbles (as per photos for the kamut ciabatta as well as baguettes).
I think this should probably happen around 1 1/2 hour or 2 hours ish....
THEN into the wine cooler at 5C from 16:00 ish until 9AM...or longer...I expect the dough not to rise much but have nice bubbles...
Cold pre-shape, rest 30 min to let dough relax ....final shape and into banetton and back into wine cooler at 5C for mhmmmmm 8 hours....
ha, ha....we shall see... Kat
Dough at beginning of bulk after all mixing... 14:00
15:30 Dough goes after 3 coil folds at 30min intervals in the wine cooler, dough temp was 75F
Shall see what it will look like in the morning...
It is the morning 8:00AM and took dough out of wine cooler and temp was 7.5C...looks nice with small bubbles and has risen a bit but not alarmingly too much...
Pre-Shape cold dough and 30 min bench rest
Dough after bench rest nicely relaxed but still those domes where they meet the bench...Carl the Pigfarmer pointed out sometime ago to a blog with a comment from Chad Robertson about that and found it really helpful...
Final shape was 'cinching' and just rolling the dough on top of each other and creating tension...
Really liked the feel of that dough and so puffy considering it came out of fridge not long ago and had 30 min bench rest!
The dough in the Brotform was 850g and in 1kg form and a bit more than the other..I am playing around what type of banneton gets better form etc. etc...not conclusive yet..
9:00 AM now .....So tempted just to room proof them but the experiment says to put them back into the wine cooler...for let's say 8 hours at 6C...I will keep an eye on them and just want them to fill the forms with that domed look when the sides come off the form...
ok...6 hours later in the wine cooler the dough looked ready and I chickened out thinking it will overproof otherwise in the wine cooler who is normally approx. 1/2 C above setting..
I took dough out and actual dough temp was 7.4C.... I REALLY APPRECIATE IF PEOPLE COULD SHARE THOUGHTS HOW THEY JUDGE THE AMOUNT OF RISE IN THEIR FRIDGE? I do this now mainly by knowing kind of the type of rise and bounciness of the loaf as well as when it comes of the banneton at the edges...any other thoughts are much appreciated.
I don't trust the poke test at all when the dough is retarded as a reliable option.
The way the scores opened I felt the dough was not overproofed and about right?
Very happy with oven spring and crumb of second loaf although it was too early to cut but could not wait..
Or could I have potentially could have more openness by waiting a bit longer in fridge...never mind...
In conclusion from my point of view - it is another way to time a bake but I don't think that it will create necessarily a more open crumb.....the oven spring was great though....
Solano it will be interesting what you have found out? Good luck!
I was coming here just to ask if it was necessary to let the dough reach a higher temperature when it was to make the pre-shape and the shape, or could immediately go back to the refrigerator, or in your case the wine cooler. I believe it is a matter of experimenting, although letting the temperature rise would be risky, a great chance to end up overproofing, I guess. In my timeline it's difficult to fit a start of final proofing at room temperature, so for now I'll do it too, pre-shape, shape and back to the refrigerator. I will start my levain today and probably start the bread tomorrow, unfortunately it will not be possible to look the dough and not the clock this time, but it will be good to get an idea of the limits, I am thinking of 3 hours of BF at room temperature and 14 hours in the refrigerator , I will post the right times afterwards with the result.
Good lucky! haha
Solano
good thinking about whether to proof a bit once in banneton but I also don't put it back into a very cold fridge that stops most activity at 3c but wine cooler is more 5C/6C so I probably get minor rise...
So you are right that I don't want it to overproof and we shall see...
In your case you probably could let it go 30 min or so and then back in the VERY COLD FRIDGE! Brrrrrr.... Kat
Wonderful breads again, Kat! Very long BF and not overproofed, interesting, as I will have to work with temperatures lower than that of your wine cooler I will have to be careful not to completely block the fermentation and finish with one more underproofed bread. Any difference in flavor due to slower fermentation? Maybe we will not have many differences between cold and hot BF, but it is good to know that we have a good option to adjust the baking with the schedule of the week.
The underside of the crust seems dense as in my loaves, does yours always look like this? Are they more difficult to eat? People often comment when they eat my loaves, as this part is hard, it gets better when I heat the bread before eating, but I'd love to be able to leave the crust evenly as I see in some breads.
I'm anxious to see my result, I'm going home to mix in an hour or so, tomorrow night is baking time. Temperature of my kitchen today is between 24-26 degrees, I believe the night will be 24.
Solano
are referring to the bottom of the loaf? I am experimenting how to bake darker loaves in my oven without darker bottoms. I get a nice thin crust but on darker bakes the bottom gets a bit darker... someone said that they use a tray towards the end on the stone in a B40 and maybe that's what I need to try...Good luck!
Hi Solano....Matteo Festo who recommended the bit of dough floating in the water test and published the book Natural Leavenings came back to me briefly on IG and he recommended for 'weak' flour to have a fast rise and so the bulk should be short, and either more sourdough i.e. starter I think or more heat i.e. warmer temp. But there are many facts to keep in mind like gluten development, flavour wanted...
So....my hunch would be to do a 1 hour or so AL and up the temp of bulk to 80F or something like that or if you find it difficult to manage warmer temp as no proofer to up the amount of starter to speed up bulk - I think you mentioned the use of more starter before...
I assume the float test took a while because of the amount of temp and starter that you used at the time...meaning a longer bulk required...
Higher temp and more starter should also result in a quicker floating dough in the test and exhausting less the weak flour I would guess...
Just wanted to share and might affect your experiment! All good fun....Kat
p.s. that will be my next experiment....to do the float test and truly end bulk when the dough starts to float in the water...I have a hunch that I will have a longer bulk with the temp and amount of starter and probably with more rise..than my usual amount...intriguing...
I was thinking yesterday about how even small variations in temperature influence a lot, my kitchen was 26 degrees last night, I used the same flour as my last bread, but at that time the temperature was lower, about 20 degrees, however this time it was almost impossible to slap and fold, the dough was very sticky, when it seemed to start to develop, it returned to a wet mass and without that soft touch, so were 200 slap and fold, was well mixed, but without the good texture last time. I forgot to separate part of the dough and leave it in the water, unfortunately, but I will do it this weekend and I will try to stop the BF only when it floats, probably much faster, because we will have warmer temperatures. On hotter days, if I use colder water, maybe it's easier to slap and fold?
Weak flour is what we have here, some interesting observations you brought from Matteo, this will help me while I can not buy stronger flour again. Even more that winter seems to be coming to an end here and soon we will have temperatures above 30 degrees. I think I need to put a wine cooler on my shopping list, hahaha.
My pasta is in the refrigerator 10 hours ago and will continue for another 3 and a half hours approximately. The temperature seemed to be between 5-6 degrees, I put the refrigerator in the minimum setting and I have more food than usual inside it, so I guess it helps to get a slightly higher temperature. Today I checked teh dough, it seems that it has grown, but not much, depending on how it is time to take it, I will lower the temperature of the refrigerator to avoid the risk of overproofer.
Solano
I might try a loaf with weaker flour for bread and see how it affects crumb...I know Trevor did a whole lot of tests using pastry flour and had some amazing results..
Oh...what will I bake next...Kat
Okay, almost there! I will start posting here how things happened, not everything went as I imagined, especially the temperature of my refrigerator, I thought it would cool more, but it did not cool, the thermometer was setting 9º C when I took the dough to the pre-shape. The dough has had a lot of growth, I can not estimate how much, but I imagine at least 50%. When I made the pre-shape it was easy and I had no problems, but when I made the shape I think I degassed it a little, many bubbles appeared on the surface when I finished. As I thought it grew a lot, I put the refrigerator on level 4 (it was on level 1). The ghost of overproofer is prowling around my dough and I can already imagine it deflating when cut, but maybe I'm wrong, so I hope. I can already say that I have never worked a dough that I felt was clearly full of air, like this one of today, so soft.
Dough at the beginning of bulking
Dough after the last fold and the moment that went to the refrigerator
Dough at the end of the BF (3 hours warm 26º C, 13 hours and 30 minutes cold 7-9º C)
After the pre-shape
Dough on the banneton
Before baking, after 6 hours in the refrigerator 2º C (Did not fill the whole banneton :( )
In the oven! (inspired by Kat's photo on the other post)
Bread!
Crumb!
It's clearly underproofed, dense crumb, the ear broke (I think in another post someone told me that this was a classic sign of underproofed dough) and not so great oven spring. What I think happened, I overestimated the growth of BF, could have grown even more I think, then decreased the temperature of the refrigerator, reached 2 ° C and blocked the fermentation, so did not even fill the banneton. Maybe if it had stayed at level one, which was 9º C, it would have ended overproofed, difficult to know, but surely now I will have a better idea of how much dough has grown and how much it can grow.
Solano
and the dough looks snug in the banneton! Keep fingers crossed!
One thing I learnt- there is a fridge conspiracy out there against us SD bakers! Kat
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update... I think you are a bit hard on yourself and that is a beautiful loaf and crumb and whilst not a super open crumb I would not necessarily say it is 'underfermented' in a 'bad' way...I would like to hear what other's have to say...I think the crumb is good in my humble opinion.
I love that photo in the oven!!!
One thought...how long did you rest the dough during bench rest after pre-shape? It looks snug in the banneton and you said that you did get bubbles...when I did the baguettes with the cold dough from fridge I was amazed how much difference the bench rest made and how airy the dough was during final shaping...but the baguettes were only 350g and maybe a longer bench rest for a bigger loaf would be better let's say 1 hour.
That dialling of one's fridge and how long to retard is also something I don't find easy myself. My fridge did tend to overproof as so warm and now I am probably too careful with the wine cooler as it tends to be higher than the 4C on setting and the dough does take a while to cool down..and I am paranoid about overproofing.....Dan has some amazing data on that in his retarder....
In the end it is a process via baking the same bread again and again, put the fridge on the same setting, the dough on the same shelf and see what timing gets the best results....
I am rambling and you know all of this anyway...:D
Yes, you're right, I gave that bread to friends and I got a lot of compliments, then I read your comment here and read Danielle's also in my other post that is in the "bread browser", I commented there that I remembered "crumb dysmorphia" , which Trevor explains in the post "The Embarrassing Problem of Tartine Envy". I need to look at my breads better as if they were not mine, if you understand me.
I always let bench rest for 20 minutes, covered, plus 5 minutes uncovered, something I saw in various recipes from Maurizio, but now that you asked, I was wondering what the purpose of the bench rest? Is it relaxing gluten? I do not know, but I'll start researching this. Gradually we are getting rid of the "times" and learning what to look for in the dough.
Hey Solano,
I baked a Tartine Style Country loaf yesterday and will post later but I used the
put the dough in the water test and put the glass in the proofer next to the bulking dough..
The bulk went much longer than my usual Champlain at 75F and the piece of dough would just not float...
The bulk got very proofy and after 5 1/2 hour I had to finish bulk as I had to go to a vet appointment for my dog...
Just then as I finished pre-shape the dough started moving upwards..
So, my conclusion for the floating in the water test it that it will end bulk at a stage where the dough is very proofy and well bulked...can also depend on amount of folds I imagine as then bulk is a bit slower under more tension...
Just wanted to share.... Kat
I asked in the other post about this, ignore my question there, I had not seen your answer here! It seems to me then that the floating test can be useful, but then take care because it is already very proofy. Nice to know it can be used, every tool we can use seems like a great idea!
Thanks for sharing, Kat!
Solano