March 4, 2023 - 4:23am
stretch and fold question
Hello,
If I develop the gluten of my sourdough in a stand mixer for 15 mins and it comes out lovely and silky, is there still a need to stretch and fold at intervals during the rise?
Or should I just leave it to rise without touching it?
Any help gratefully received
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Stretch and fold is a technique to develop gluten in doughs that are too wet to handle. If you have completely developed the gluten in a stand mixer then just cover the dough until it is ready to shape.
Thank you, I felt as much
As you note the mixer is for gluten development. The s&f’s are to move the food availability for the yeast growth. You will notice when your dough is rising and then seems to stall if you gently remove from the container and do even one good s&f after you return the dough to the container it will surge ahead. Think “ feeding time at the zoo!”. They can’t go after the food you have to bring it to the little beasties.
I an linking a very informative piece at the end of my post. You will see a lot of pictures on TFL with the query “ what did I do wrong?” . Their pictures will often involve caverns of various sizes in their bread after baking. When reading the article pay attention to the subject of the yeast development in dough. Yeast is a single cell organism and gives off gas as it develops which leads to the rising of the bread. If as I noted above you don’t encourage a more even development by relocating the yeasts and their produced gas to a more uniform location in the dough you can get the dreaded non uniform caverns.
I hope this broadens the concept of S&F it does develop gluten but more importantly it creates a more homogeneous atmosphere for yeast development.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-scientific-secret-of-stretchy-dough/
Yeast does not necessarily have to be taken to the food. They'll eat their way through it all. Yeast in bread is an infection. It spreads. Plus with building a levain and kneading for 10-15 minutes they'll be thoroughly mixed in anyway. The stretch and folds beyond this point is really not needed to make perfect bread. I'd accept it might be more necessary if using a very small amount of starter and doing everything by hand but otherwise, from the question itself, the difference will be minimal. I've made bread using just 2% starter, no kneading and one set of stretch and folds. Turns out like any other bread. If one is using a lot more starter and kneads for 15 minutes it'll be fine.
This is helpful thank you
I would answer this question a bit differently. First I would say that the mixer will develop the gluten extremely well. Good gluten development is essential to good dough structure, in that you cannot have good structure without good gluten. However, good gluten isn’t sufficient for good structure. The structure of the dough is especially important for hearth loaves that don’t have the benefit of support from a pan. Think of gluten as a net, you can have a strong net, but it needs to be organized in a way three dimensionally and filled with air to give the dough structure to stay standing and not spread out when baked.
So for a hearth loaf, you need some degree of folds to help organize the dough as it fills with gases during bulk. For a pan loaf, that isn’t as necessary since it will have the support of the pan as it grows. So for pan loaves after I fully develop the gluten I don’t touch the dough again until shaping. For hearth loaves, I like to make sure the gluten is at least moderately developed and then do a series of folds to complete the gluten development and give the dough structure as it ferments.
Benny
This is so helpful, thank you.
I feel exactly as you say, that somehow the folds help with the structure.
I wonder though whether I tend to fold too much and actually weaken the structure. Is that a thing?
When I do a first fold of well developed dough, I find that the dough feels lovely and tight and if I scored it there and then, the score would remain long enough to grow ears in the oven. Unfortunately when I fold too much that structure goes a bit.
Also, I don't know whether it's just practice, but when I pre shape the ball is nice and tight. Obviously the dough then relaxes and I find with the final shape I'm not getting it that tight.
I'm thinking less is more. Less time in the rise, fewer folds, less messing around. Your thoughts are most useful especially with regards to a hearth loaf which is where I get that 'spread' when scoring.
If you are getting too much spread after properly mixing and doing S& Fs the dough has probably over-proofed.
Ian
Yes I wondered that and it's why I use an aliquot jar now. Dough goes in the fridge when it has risen 25%. Still spreads though. Also, I do get a decent rise almost every time. Just no ears and a lot of immediate spread when scoring.
https://www.google.com/search?q=does+bread+dough+need+to+be+folded+to+move+yeasts+around&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS676US676&hl=en-US&sxsrf=AJOqlzWmIcfGk_-gpWwuQtxE94ZQybJCKg%3A1677950988398&ei=DIADZI3yF_e15NoP3s6X6AE&oq=does+bread+dough+need+to+be+folded+to+move+yeasts+around&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgAToKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzoECCMQJzoFCCEQqwI6CAghEBYQHhAdOgYIABAWEB46BQgAEIYDOgcIIRCgARAKOgUIABCABDoFCAAQkQI6CAgAEIAEELEDOg0IABCABBAUEIcCELEDOgoIABCABBAUEIcCOgcIABCABBAKOgcIABANEIAEOgwIABCABBAUEIcCEAo6DAgAEA0QgAQQFBCHAjoFCAAQogRKBAhBGABQ2BVYjeIDYPDmA2gRcAB4AIABwwGIAd5GkgEFODMuMTmYAQCgAQHIAQjAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
I own a bakery and we do not stretch and fold anything during BF. Just the initial mix and then 4 hours or however long of BF let alone. We do S+F right before dumping out of the container but this is more a part of the shaping.
Thank you for this insight. I wonder whether that one stretch and fold you do builds great structure. I'm going to try like this.
Bakers seem to be split into two camps: those who believe that dough needs lots of stretch and folds and those that believe you don't need any.
I guess both ways will work. I usually give one fold about 3/4hrs into bulk and that's enough for me - any more and I would feel like a slave to the bread. I guess if you look back at the old ways of making yeasted breads (at least in the UK), then it was common to do a punchdown during bulk once the dough was risen. Possibly this was doing a similar thng to an S&F.And perhaps it suggests that if you are just doing one fold it might be better to do it once the dough has got some rise. Who knows?
The other thought is that necessity of S&Fs probably depends not only on the effectiveness of the mixing, but also the protein content and quality of the flour mix used.
Lance