Hamelman's light rye / overnight fermentation

My new go-to loaf is Hamelman's light rye. I leave out the caraway seeds (never aquired a taste) and use whole rye. 

This week, my baking schedule was thrown off, so I had to improvise. Hamelman's recipe calls for an 18-hour sourdough starter, a 1-hour bulk fermentation, and a 1-hour proof before baking. Due to time constraints, I had to put the dough in the fridge overnight after shaping.

Additionally, I have recently taken to baking larger (but fewer) loaves. I do this primarily for convenience: since I had doubled the above recipe, I would have had to shape, proof, and bake four loaves. Honestly, it's easier to do just one giant, 6 pound loaf.

I ran into two minor problems. First, I didn't cut back on the yeast, so the dough rose more than I would have liked in the refrigerator. I thought for sure it would collapse, but it held strong in the oven. Second, I didn't account for the size of the dough when baking. After about 40 minutes, the crust was dark, but the inner crumb only registered 130 degrees. I turned the oven down to 350 and let it bake for another 30 minutes (and was almost late for work as a result).

The results are pictured below:

I was a little surprised that this worked out, as everything I have read up to this point suggests that rye bread does not handle cool fermentation very well. In the end, this was an absolutely declicious, well-rounded (ha!) loaf. Now that I know it can survive a night in the fridge, I think I'll bake it more often.