May 30, 2021 - 1:23pm
Dough showing signs of fermentation but sample has barely risen...what do I do???
I'm in a pickle:
My dough has been bulk fermenting for 4 hours at 22°C and is showing signs of fermentation, but the sample in the aliquot jar has barely risen...(the recipe doesn't mention any specific target in terms of rising to determine the end of the BF)
What do I do?? Shall I wait until the sample rises more or shall I pre-shape now???
Recipe: Country SD with less levain and longer autolyse / Maurizio
https://www.theperfectloaf.com/country-sourdough-less-levain-longer-autolyse/
Thank you!!
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The first couple of times I tried to use an aliquot jar I had the same problem. I don't know why this happens, but I'd say you should ferment longer. It's hard to say from a photo, but the dough doesn't look properly fermented to me yet. If you touch it, does it feel puffy?
In addition, in the recipe Maurizio for BFs 4.5 hrs, and also at a slightly higher temperature. So most likely your dough was not ready yet, and hopefully the sample has grown since you posted this?
I'm still waiting...My room temp is not as high as in the recipe, so I've decided to wait a bit longer....
Here is where things are right now: sample really sluggish, but the dough is bubbly and feels quite puffy, yes...
Thanks for your insight!
I guess if the room is cold it might affect the small sample disproportionately... Can you measure the dough temperature directly? Is it warmer than the sample? Ultimately, the dough is what matters, of course, just reading it is more tricky than a small sample.
The sample is at 24°C and the dough at 23°
Super weird..it has never happened before...The dough is super sticky and not very puffy actually..
Thanks so much for your help!
OK, at least if it's not puffy the sample is likely correct. I'd just keep waiting until it starts growing. 23-24C is not so cold, you should see something soon. Perhaps your starter/levain wasn't quite ready... Maybe someone else will chime in with ideas.
Thanks again for your help :-)
Here are the results...Not as bad as I expected, but pretty dense crumb
I still can't figure out what happened ..even at the end of the cold bulk, the sample was still stuck at around 25%, not more, but I couldn't let the dough rest at RT before baking them, so here they are...So clearly underproof, right???
I put 30g of dough into my aliquot jar and then add water to 40 ml and use the meniscus as the progress line, but in this case you have leveled the dough in the aliqot jar pretty well. I just don't kow where you started. A good target for end of bulk is 25-30% volume increase. The longer you wait the faster it is growing while you are trying to divide, preshape, rest, and shape, so sometimes it is better to use the lower number.
it starts at the lowest black dash
So after 8h of bulk and a barely 25% rise in my aliquot jar, I decided to carry on with the process as I didn't want to stay up all night: pre-shaping, 20mn rest, shaping, 1h rest at RT then fridge overnight... I'm just really surprised as usually the dough sample in the aliquot jat is pretty responsive and this time, it seemed completely inert...One more bread mystery to solve!! :-))
Those are very pretty loaves @SunnyGail. With my starter I find that I don't get much growth in an aliquot jar. If I try to let it grow beyond 20% or so, the bread ends up overproofed (so I am with @Doc.Dough there), (The starter will go to 100% plus when feeding it.) If I shape when it has risen 20% I end up with a nice loaf, but not a really light fluffy one - your's look like my good ones end up! Looking at the recipe (15% levain at ~90% hydration makes ~7% pre-fermented fliour) and your temperature (22C) I wouldn't expect much at 4 hrs with my starter. Using 9% pff at 23C I am just about getting there at 4 hrs.
But I suspect you are aiming higher for your loaves than I do.