Pre-refreshment of lievito madre / pasta madre after keeping it a fridge at 4C for a week
Has anyone had success in using a combination of RT/fridge method in order to give a 'night rest' for the lievito madre before panettone refreshment?
I am working on preparing my lievito madre / pasta madre to be ready for panettone baking. So far I haven't really managed to bring it to the level I want, so I am reviewing my preparation method. Too many resources - confusing, plus, having 30C as the RT and not owning a chiller to achieve the 16C-night-rest have been a challenge.
From what I understand, in order to really get lievito madre ready for panettone, prior to completing the 3 refreshments every 4 hours, one needs to start refreshing it using a series of daily refreshment and night rest.
So I do not have a wine fridge to keep the dough at 16C at night, so I have two options: to get a mini fridge which can chill to achieve similar temp, or to opt for a combination of RT and fridge. The latter idea came from the blog written but Bakonomics guy (https://buonapizza.forumfree.it/?t=75691974), and if the Google Translate is accurate, he said the following:
- making a night rest of the yeast of 16h is essential to allow the yeast to purify itself from harmful, non-specific microorganisms, due to the high acidity that is formed. In addition, the acidity spontaneously selects the strongest elements. The rest must be done at 16-18 ° C (both for bound yeast and in water, as long as the latter is held harder). If unable to keep the yeast at 16 °, help yourself with the fridge: up to 20-21 ° leave at RT, at 26 ° leave at RT for 8h and finish in the fridge, at 32 ° 4h at RT and rest in the fridge, at 38 ° 2h at RT and the rest in the fridge;
The RT here in Thailand is 30C, so I should leave it around 5-6 hours at RT, then into the fridge. This morning it seemed to have grown but not x3, this afternoon I will try to leave it longer outside to see how it goes.
i am also a bit confused about the amount of sugar chefs have been using. There seem to be 2 opinions; 2g/liter and 0.5g/liter. I am assuming that the latter is fructose, not sucrose/sugar. And also, when you do such pre-refreshment straight out of the fridge, what the best ratio to mix LM, flour and water. For the first one I opted for 1:2:0.7. The next one - 1:1:0.44 - 0.46.
Anyway, a bit complicated topic, if anyone can share some insights, I would be grateful! Thanks!
Hello, sorry but I'm a year late. Currently in the same situation as you! Living in Singapore with 30C with no chiller. Have you manage to find a work around maintaining it at 16-18c?
I got myself a very small wine fridge which works well. however, now I am trying Fabio Franco's semi-solid lievito madre management, which does not really require that at all. I just use some ice pack & foam cooler to maintain 27-28C while refreshing it, then it just goes into the fridge after it grows x1.5. his yeast management suits me very well here in the tropic, try to search for the FB group La Casa del Lievito
Do you have the link or instruction to the semi solid LM management where i can read more about it?
https://www.casadellievito.it/index.php/tecniche/gestione-del-lievito-madre-semisolido I use the Google Translate extension on Chrome to read it in English. on his FB group, you can also download all the recipes & instructions, which can be translated into English per Google Translate (you can upload pdf). I like the fact that refreshment is easy and doesn't waste much flour like I used to maintaining traditional solid pasta madre. Just baked a loaf using his recipe & yeast and it the best loaf I have ever baked! Trying panettone later this week :)
I'm mostly guessing here, but if you can't get a small cooler/fridge that would hold a temp in the 20's C, maybe you could try:
Good luck.
thank you! yeah the fridge is the only way to achieve that result, it has been a great thing to have! no I could not have rye since I like baking panettone and so on, it has too much enzyme and just degrades it. I need to minimize the lactic acid build up for such enriched dough.