7-day build dough

Profile picture for user sallam
sallam on 1 Feb 2021 at 16:12

Greetings

This method is an inspiration from dabrownman's NMNF starter method

 

 

 

 

Th idea is to start with a tiny 1g seed, the build it up every day for a week until all the ingredients are used up. You can choose to build it in 2,3,4,5,6 or 7 days as you wish.

Ingredients:

1kg flour pack

a bottle containing 20g sea salt, disolved in 510g of water

 

 I use a homemade starter, so the seed is a sourdough. But even if you seed from commercial yeast dough, I recon overtime wild yeast would build up and eventually take over.

 The final dough has a comfortable relaxed feeling when shaped in pizza trays, good oven rise, and a beautiful taste from all the over-fermentation it went through, except day 7 of course.

 You should try it.

 I made a little editable sheet for anyone interested, where you can input your own flour and salt quantities and your preferred hydration percentage, then the sheet will show you the daily build ingredients.

Here is the link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q6H6rPfPLkf-mv3aQpS6wqPgJWS5oZkriCRs--bDQmI/edit?usp=sharing

Here is how sheet looks like:

 

fill the yellow cells  Day1234567Total
Total flour (g):1000 seed1412361083241074 
Four to water ratio100% water141236108375 536
Final hydration:51% flour2412361083754631000
dough salt2.6% total41236108324107415361536
            
 6-day build Day123456Total 
   seed412361083241076  
   water41236108376 536 
   flour412361083764641000 
   total1236108324107615401536 
            
 5-day build Day12345Total  
   seed12361083241084   
   water1236108380 536  
   flour12361083804641000  
   total36108324108415481536  
            
 4-day build Day1234Total   
   seed361083241108    
   water36108392 536   
   flour361083924641000   
   total108324110815721536   
            
 3-day build Day123Total    
   seed108324972     
   water108324104536    
   flour1083245681000    
   total32497216441536    
            
 2-day build Day23Total     
   seed324972      
   water324212536     
   flour3246761000     
   total97218601536    

I like your idea but 7 days results in too small quantities at the beginning for my tiny pan so I took the challenge to develop an N-day build chart along the same lines as yours. It was harder than I expected but good fun!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lrRfzaQCagW5se4lBI4sPskTVDS8GLUJ2jzWpDnKQmc/edit?usp=sharing

If you make a copy of the sheet above, you should be able to modify the number of days and see the table get regenerated. 

It is strangely right to left because I couldn't figure out how to handle that last flour installment in the other order. 

Only edit the 3 values in bold, the others should take care of themselves. I'm assuming 100% hydration every day except the last.

I'm on the first day of a 5-day dough so it will be a while.

Do you add anything else?

Also, what temperature are you using for fermentation?

Profile picture for user GaryBishop

GaryBishop on 3 Feb 2021 at 15:24

I like your idea of mixing the salt into the water. You can accomplish that with my sheet by simply increasing the hydration by 2% to account for the salt. 

Unfortunately, on testing your N-day version, less then 7 days don't add up to the total flour and water. The day columns disappear, but that doesn't change the values of the selected days' cells.

Please give me an example. Perhaps in the public copy.

I think you mean the columns disappear, I don't have any rows appearing.

With my formulation, a 4-day build is the same as a 7 day build for the last 4 days. Only the beginning days change by getting smaller. 

if you sum the flour content of 4 days they would be less than the total flour. Same for water. I've tested your own  version. All that happens when you change the number of days from say 5 to 4 or 3,  the columns disappear but the values stay the same in the remaining columns, which means that the flour is not all used as planned nor the water. Only when you type 7 days that everything adds up to the total flour and water. 

To get total flour content on any day, you add 1/2 the seed for that day to the flour added on that day. 

If you sum the flour row, you'll be missing the flour that came in with the seed on day 1. 

Here is an example for 100g of flour and 50% hydration for 3 days.

 

Day321
Seed100.033.011.0
Flour50.033.511.0
Water0.033.511.0

The total flour on day 3 is 100/2 + 50 = 100g

If you add the flour row you'll get 94.5g but you also have 5.5g from the first day seed.

 

Yes, but the seed in my method comes from the last dough's residue in the pan. We don't make it from the new dough's flour or water.

I now see where this came from. You counted the flour and water of the seed, which shouldn't be counted in my method, its like a pâte fermentée  (old dough) method. Apologies for not being clear enough on this.

 

 

 

 

To me, flour is flour regardless of whether it came from a previous batch or fresh. In my formulas I account for every bit. 

People vary on what they count. You should be able to modify that sheet to work the way you want.

I think my starter might be dominated by AAB as suggested by that recent study for starters maintained below 23C. 

My 5-day build resulted in a loaf that barely rose and had structure similar to rye bread. Very acidic with a strong vinegar tang.

I'm having better luck at elevated temperatures.