Can Water Roux be Refrigerated?
I'm curious if anyone has tried making roux ahead of time, refrigerating it and using it in a dough recipe the next day. I like to make bread on weeknights from time to time and I can really only pull it off if I start as soon as I get home and make bread that requires no more than three hours total rising time between bulk rise and loaf proofing if I want to get it baked and reasonably cooled before bedtime. Every minute counts, making a roux fresh and allowing it to cool enough to use in a dough adds a bit of time to the process.
I'm wondering if the refrigerated roux would be as effective as one made fresh because I read the following in Wikipedia's entry on Starch Gelatization:
"Cooked, unmodified starch, when cooled for a long enough period, will thicken (or gel) and rearrange itself again to a more crystalline structure; this process is called retrogradation. During cooling, starch molecules gradually aggregate to form a gel. Molecular associations occur: Amylose-Amylose ; Amylose-Amylopectin; Amylopectin-Amylopectin. A mild association amongst chains come together with water still embedded in the molecule. Due to the tightly packed organization of small granule starches, retrogradation occurs much more slowly compared to larger starch granules. High amylose starches require more energy to break up bonds to gelatinize into starch molecules, leading to a rigid and stiff gel. A mild association amongst chains come together with water still embedded in the molecule.
"Due to strong associations of hydrogen bonding, longer amylose molecules will form a stiff gel.Amylopectin molecules with longer branched structure, increases the tendency to form strong gels. Granule size do not directly impact starch performance, but it is one of the main factors affecting starch gelatinzation and retrogradation. High amylopectin starches will have a stable gel, but will be softer than high amylose gels.
Retrogradation restricts the availability for amylase hydrolysis to occur."
Can anyone translate that for me in a way that will indicate what if any difference this might make when adding the refrigerated roux to a whole wheat bread dough?