April 13, 2024 - 8:53am
Folding Intervals for High Hydration
Formulas for high hydration doughs (especially with whole grains) often call for 4-5 rounds of folds during bulk fermentation. The majority of the formulas suggest additional folds at increasing intervals like this timing: fold at 30 minutes - 1.5 hrs - 3.5 hrs - 6 hrs, ie, farther apart as fermentation proceeds.
Maybe 1/3 of formulas call for the same interval between each round of folds and a longer rest at the end, eg, folds at 30 minutes - 1 hr - 1.5 hr - 2 hr - 2.5 hr
- Is there a rationale for one approach or the other? Or is the difference too small to notice? Front-loading the folds is more convenient for me, and would be more convenient for retarding after the last folds.
- I typically use stretch-and-folds in the bowl, then coil folds in the bowl, and finally a lamination fold (when I add the nuts). Diversifying the folding techniques makes sense; is one order preferred over another?
Thanks for your explanations and advice.
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I don't think that details of order, technique, or timing are very important. What are important are stretching the dough, which develops strength or elasticity; time, which develops order in the gluten and lets it relax; and the time between the last stretching and when you want to shape a loaf.
If you have a very slack dough - maybe a sloppy wet dough - you know it's going to relax into a puddle by shaping time so you keep working with it well into bulk ferment. In a drier or stiffer dough you may find that it's very springy and elastic after the second S&F, and never need to touch it again. Wetter doughs tend to be very extensible, maybe too much so, and they are the ones that can benefit from a lamination fold.
The actual stretching technique is also not some magical trick, but should be whatever is easy to do given the dough and how you like to handle it. I often make relatively small loaves (only two mouths to feed) with 300g of flour. They don't have much weight to pull down or stretch the dough. So I will just stretch the dough between my hands, or pin one end to the bench with a bench scraper while pulling it out with the other hand. If I'm working with a larger and wetter mass of dough, I'll tend to do coil folds because there will be enough mass to pull the stretchier dough down.
Even the preform plays a role here, since it's basically more stretching. A weak overly extensible dough will need a lot of stretching and/or rolling just to make a decent preform, while with a very stiff, springy dough it might be better to skip the preform and just directly shape your loaf.
You just have to go by the dough and its characteristics, together with what is convenient or easy for you personally to do. Those prescribed times and techniques are just suggestions based on what worked and was convenient for a particular person and dough.
TomP
Thanks very much. Your explanations tracks closely with with my experience; I feel a lot better with what I have been doing and changes that I've been considering (adding more folds for higher hydration doughs until they feel strong enough).
Some video bakers have suggested that coil folds are gentler than stretch-and -folds, so they start with s & f and then go to coli folds. Apparently lamination folds are not as rough as one might guess.
85-90% hydration, here I come.
Again, it depends on the dough. Wet, stretchy dough needs to be stretched further for a good effect. Sometimes when I stretch such a dough between my hands (I mean up in the air, not touching the bench or bowl at all), I can pull it out by a foot or more. That's not doing violence to the dough - no sign of tearing, for example - but just doing what it is asking for.
I hope my other invisible friends don't get jealous when I start having conversations with my dough.
(just kidding)
Working like this with the dough feels somehow more like jazz, or maybe a dance. I like that!