I usually hold some of the water back, which I then use to dissolve the salt and the yeast/starter. That gives a limited ability to correct but, for a 30 min auto there really shouldn't be much drop.
My kitchen in the evening has been around 15c and the other night my auto (temp 26.4c) only droped 1.5c over almost 2 hours (I was called away unavoidably!). I.e. for a relatively short auto in a room that is not at any temperature extreme, it should be okay. (The high temp at the start of the auto was to account for the expected drop during the evening to try and hit a ~4 hour initial bulk prior to retarding in the fridge.)
Last summer, when the temps in our place reached some fairly ridiculous levels (>40c) I have resorted to putting the dough (at whatever stage) in the lounge, where it is airconditioned or into a 'cold' oven - just to insulate it. Likewise when it was quite cold over winter - I simply moved the dough.
In the end, I feel that shooting for a DDT kind of assumes that the dough will actually stay close enough to that temperature during the fermentation time so dropping or rising 0.5-1c during an autolyse is no more problematic than the final dough droping or rising during bulk and the answer is to just adjust up or down a degree or so at the start.
At least that's my take and how I 'manage' it here. I recently made a poolish and biga at the same time one night, calibrating the temps so the poolish was at 24c and the Biga 16c. By morning, both were identical at ~14c.
In other words, if maintaining a specific range of temps is crucial, you simply need a temperature-controlled proofing environment - otherwise all you can do is make a bit of an estimate to have the dough spend a decent amount of time passing through the optimal range and then try to warm it or cool it if it strays to far.
Thanks Dan. I should clarify. I actually have a decent proofing chamber that is digitally controlled (inkbird dual-controller). The issue I'm querying about is one where you will mix-in and autolyse for maybe an hour or two (in proofing chamber at DDT, let's say, or merely room temp). You've got your DDT at this point fairly well dialed in - standard DDT, pre-ferment multiplier, room, flour and levain temp, then water temp as the variable.
Problem is, we're not done here. Further mixing in of levain and salt (typically), will be mixing in and at the very least, mixed until the levain and salt are well incorporated and evenly distributed. This will raise the temp at least somewhat. If you do another small interval of post-mixing machine kneading, say, 3 minute on KA 2nd speed, you're going to raise the temp some more. Furthermore, even if you have hold-back water, it won't be much.
So while it's easy enough to hit a pre-autolyse DDT, or hit a finished dough without an autolyse, I'm wondering if there's some calculations one could make to incorporate the autolyse as another step to be accounted for? The final DDT can be off by quite a bit, it seems me Because there's no real makeup water (or very little), I can't see a means for much further adjustment after the autolyse. One could come in cold to begin with, but end up too cool after all; or come in following the standard DDT calculation, but further mixing will add additional heat and so you'd overshoot.
I see and I half suspected this was your situation given that, unless you do have means to be that precise, it's a non-issue, really.
I suppose that, when it comes to it, mixing and kneading 'factors' are really simply just a more-or-less fixed addition of heat to the dough mass.
Testing of a simple flour/water mixture (at your usual hydration) would be necessary to verify but I would expect that one could derive a fairly simple increase in temperature for a certain length and speed of mixing. E.g. speed 1 for 5kg of dough at 75% hydration generates a 1.5c increase in temperature per minute, while speed 2, on the same dough, adds 3c per minute - or whatever.
If that was the case, you could presumably work backwards from there, though of course the required mixing and kneading times would have to be estimated.
I suspect that my reasoning is rather simplistic but, if you have a DDT of, say 24c and know that your mixing will add 2c and the kneading phase another 5c then that gives post-autolyse/pre-mix temp of 17c.
And, presumably you could get there one of two ways - either have your auto and pre-ferment at that same temp or, again, working backwards make a DDT calculation with just the auto and pre-ferment so you get to 17c.
Again, however, that's all based on my understanding that the heat added by mechanical mixing is pretty much just an integer increase in temp per unit of time.
Hey Dan - just clarifying, I actually do use precise measuring, at least to the limits of my equipment. I use what I learned from hamelman - DDT x (preferment factor) 4 - room temp-flour temp-levain, etc. temp-"friction factor" = water temp. to use.
Using a friction factor for most of my bakes of 22F, I tend to be really close. Of course, all kinds of stuff could throw this off, but because I tend to use the KA for just mixing, relying on FFs to develop my French levains, so I know the parameters generally.
Just don't know how to add in an autolyse into the mix. You could rest it at DDT, but then if you mix in the levain and salt for any length of time, you overshoot. Or, you could set the autolyse at a cooler temp by some, but then may not hit target temp once everything is mixed in. Just wondering if someone has worked out something to account for this.
I usually hold some of the water back, which I then use to dissolve the salt and the yeast/starter. That gives a limited ability to correct but, for a 30 min auto there really shouldn't be much drop.
My kitchen in the evening has been around 15c and the other night my auto (temp 26.4c) only droped 1.5c over almost 2 hours (I was called away unavoidably!). I.e. for a relatively short auto in a room that is not at any temperature extreme, it should be okay. (The high temp at the start of the auto was to account for the expected drop during the evening to try and hit a ~4 hour initial bulk prior to retarding in the fridge.)
Last summer, when the temps in our place reached some fairly ridiculous levels (>40c) I have resorted to putting the dough (at whatever stage) in the lounge, where it is airconditioned or into a 'cold' oven - just to insulate it. Likewise when it was quite cold over winter - I simply moved the dough.
In the end, I feel that shooting for a DDT kind of assumes that the dough will actually stay close enough to that temperature during the fermentation time so dropping or rising 0.5-1c during an autolyse is no more problematic than the final dough droping or rising during bulk and the answer is to just adjust up or down a degree or so at the start.
At least that's my take and how I 'manage' it here. I recently made a poolish and biga at the same time one night, calibrating the temps so the poolish was at 24c and the Biga 16c. By morning, both were identical at ~14c.
In other words, if maintaining a specific range of temps is crucial, you simply need a temperature-controlled proofing environment - otherwise all you can do is make a bit of an estimate to have the dough spend a decent amount of time passing through the optimal range and then try to warm it or cool it if it strays to far.
d.
Thanks Dan. I should clarify. I actually have a decent proofing chamber that is digitally controlled (inkbird dual-controller). The issue I'm querying about is one where you will mix-in and autolyse for maybe an hour or two (in proofing chamber at DDT, let's say, or merely room temp). You've got your DDT at this point fairly well dialed in - standard DDT, pre-ferment multiplier, room, flour and levain temp, then water temp as the variable.
Problem is, we're not done here. Further mixing in of levain and salt (typically), will be mixing in and at the very least, mixed until the levain and salt are well incorporated and evenly distributed. This will raise the temp at least somewhat. If you do another small interval of post-mixing machine kneading, say, 3 minute on KA 2nd speed, you're going to raise the temp some more. Furthermore, even if you have hold-back water, it won't be much.
So while it's easy enough to hit a pre-autolyse DDT, or hit a finished dough without an autolyse, I'm wondering if there's some calculations one could make to incorporate the autolyse as another step to be accounted for? The final DDT can be off by quite a bit, it seems me Because there's no real makeup water (or very little), I can't see a means for much further adjustment after the autolyse. One could come in cold to begin with, but end up too cool after all; or come in following the standard DDT calculation, but further mixing will add additional heat and so you'd overshoot.
I see and I half suspected this was your situation given that, unless you do have means to be that precise, it's a non-issue, really.
I suppose that, when it comes to it, mixing and kneading 'factors' are really simply just a more-or-less fixed addition of heat to the dough mass.
Testing of a simple flour/water mixture (at your usual hydration) would be necessary to verify but I would expect that one could derive a fairly simple increase in temperature for a certain length and speed of mixing. E.g. speed 1 for 5kg of dough at 75% hydration generates a 1.5c increase in temperature per minute, while speed 2, on the same dough, adds 3c per minute - or whatever.
If that was the case, you could presumably work backwards from there, though of course the required mixing and kneading times would have to be estimated.
I suspect that my reasoning is rather simplistic but, if you have a DDT of, say 24c and know that your mixing will add 2c and the kneading phase another 5c then that gives post-autolyse/pre-mix temp of 17c.
And, presumably you could get there one of two ways - either have your auto and pre-ferment at that same temp or, again, working backwards make a DDT calculation with just the auto and pre-ferment so you get to 17c.
Again, however, that's all based on my understanding that the heat added by mechanical mixing is pretty much just an integer increase in temp per unit of time.
Hey Dan - just clarifying, I actually do use precise measuring, at least to the limits of my equipment. I use what I learned from hamelman - DDT x (preferment factor) 4 - room temp-flour temp-levain, etc. temp-"friction factor" = water temp. to use.
Using a friction factor for most of my bakes of 22F, I tend to be really close. Of course, all kinds of stuff could throw this off, but because I tend to use the KA for just mixing, relying on FFs to develop my French levains, so I know the parameters generally.
Just don't know how to add in an autolyse into the mix. You could rest it at DDT, but then if you mix in the levain and salt for any length of time, you overshoot. Or, you could set the autolyse at a cooler temp by some, but then may not hit target temp once everything is mixed in. Just wondering if someone has worked out something to account for this.
You're probably saying the same thing.