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rye sourdough fails to rise after a few days in the fridge

elpeger's picture
elpeger

rye sourdough fails to rise after a few days in the fridge

Hello,

A newcomer to  this forum, but I've looked around for a bit to see if there is a solution to my problem and have  not found a "fix".

I've been making a rye sourdough bread reasonably successfully for a month. I have some homemade 100% rye flour sourdough starter. My steps have been as follows:

Step 1:  Mix, cover and let stand overnight (about 12 hours) : 1/3 C starter, 2 C rye flour, 2 C water
Step 2: Use KitchenAid to mix the following until the dough is "grabbing" the sides of the bowl:  1/4 tsp yeast,  about 2 C bread flour, 1.5 tsp salt
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Before the current situation, I'd let the dough sit until it triples, then knead a little, proof and bake. The latest attempt, I let the dough stay in the refrigerator for several days, since I wanted to try the "keep a big batch of dough in the fridge and make fresh bread anytime".

Well, it did not work out so well.  I let the dough sit at room temperature a few hours. It smelled "right" (good sour fragrance), but the consistency was wrong. I added some flour and kneaded  for a bit, then let it sit a few hours. It did not rise at all. Also, if I try to pull off a piece, it just rips and has no "pull" at all (see pic below)

From reading some posts, my sense is that because the dough is heavily-rye, the yeast in the dough has gotten all "spent" and has no life left in it to rise again. I know what to do next time around (i.e. go back to the process that worked :-), but is there any way to fix my current dough batch?

Thanks for any pointers.

Dina

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

but the dough matrix I s.  Rye does not retard well.  You can get a longer working time on the rye by combining with wheat flour as you did but such a long time in the fridge, well, usually doesn't rise.  It just can't hold the gasses coming off the yeast and the gas literally leaks out of the dough.  

What you have now is a big wad of starter.  So.... use it like one and keep it chilled until you can use it up raising fresh dough.

GlennM's picture
GlennM

I had neglected my rye starter for about 10 days and when I fed it nothing happened. I discarded half and fed it a few more times and it’s doing great now.