June 7, 2020 - 9:41pm
What dictates how long should I leave out my dough before I put it in the refrigerator?
Is it the relative amount of starter? Or do I just do the finger poke test? Is putting the dough in the refrigerator more to develop flavor than actually proofing the bread? Thanks!
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It is common practice among many successful SD bakers to bulk ferment the dough until it rises between 30 and 50% of original height. That takes faith in your starter. Most new bakers let the dough rise much more because they think the loaf will rise higher. The real rise of an exceptional SD loaf takes place once it hits the deck of the hot oven.
For a visual study of oven spring see THIS LINK.
A properly BF dough will not rise much or at all in a cold fridge (<39F). BUT the fermentation is taking place. Since the dough is cool, the fermentation gas produced during retardation do not expand as it would under warmer conditions. Hot gas expands / cold gas contracts.
It takes faith, but once you get it right and see the results, believing will become easy...
HTH,
Danny
I really needed this reminder after this weekend...I didn't take into account our unusually warm weather and let two batches of dough go too far, resulting in less than stellar bakes. It is unfortunate that so many recipes state that the dough should actually double during bulk ferment, which likely results in the dough running out of gas before it hits the oven. Thanks for the link and great videos as well...visuals are always much appreciated!
This probably explains why I haven’t been getting the oven spring I’d want! I just took a loaf out of the oven and hardly any oven spring. It increased in volume a ton yesterday, before I shaped and proofed in the fridge. Will be trying less bulk fermentation next time!