December 23, 2021 - 9:23am
Retard over night then shape&bake in the morning?
I am wondering if I can prepare my dough, do the bulk fermentation, S&F etc.Then place the complete batch of dough into the fridge overnight. I am asking, since I want to bake more than one Bread/Baguette, for the upcoming holidays, family & friends - I do not have enough space for more than one Benetton in the fridge. So my question is:
If I retard the batch in the fridge, how to proceed the next morning? Divide, shape, bake? Give the cuts some bench rest? Need to put them into Benetton and rest more?
Looking forward to input, thanks so much and happy holidays!!
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Just try and get the dough into the fridge a little earlier than when you would normally shape it (about 30 minutes earlier?). Next day take it out of the fridge, give it room temperature time to finish off the bulk ferment (if necessary) and to bring it closer to room temperature in order to be able to shape it. Then shape, final proof till ready and bake.
Very flexible.
Will try.
There are many different things you can do. But if you've never shaped cold dough you might never want to shape warm again. The dough is stiffer and a bit less sticky for me and easier to shape. After shaping place in the banneton to complete your fermentation and then bake.
Benny
looking forward to try cold shaping!
Right now it's 4 ~ 5°C in my garage, little warmer on the patio. Just kidding around with you but I have used the garage for overnight retard during Northern Hemisphere winter months. Best wishes for the season. Dave :)
outside it gets to like 6°C, but not constant and humid.Not sure if an overnight outside proof would work - might try ;)
I often make enough dough for 3 or more loaves, refrigerate the whole batch at somewhere south of 60% bulk fermented, then bake a loaf every day or so. Agree with Benny that cold dough’s a lot easier to work with. I pre-shape right out of the fridge, rest 45 minutes on the counter, then shape and proof for another hour before baking.
Important note: After 5 days, dough will start to degrade and go slack, so I use all by day 4 if schedule doesn't ambush me with forgotten commitments.
Good luck,
Phil
Making a bigger batch and then using it bit by bit!Thanks for the info.
Two things I do, first I don't let my bread get "too far along before the fridge" and second I divide my dough into what ever size I am using for that bake. Since I use mostly loaf pans I divide my dough into a size for the loaf pan and the place each dough ball into a plastic bag, twist tie and the into the fridge. Shape and final rise the next day, some time during the day with extra time for warm up and final rise before bake. I like to work this way because it spreads my bread making over two days - I am getting old and this ship needs to shorten sail to get things done. Makes better bread too.
but definitely will, especially with higher hydration loafs and sandwich bread - will keep your tip in mind.
I will post my bake tomorrow - fingers crossed it works out!
When I make baguettes, I do a warm bulk ferment for a couple of hours, which includes a couple of coil folds about 30 minutes apart during the first hour.
Then I place the dough in the Fridge, set to a temperature of 38-40° for a cold bulk ferment of about 20 hours.
The next day, I remove the dough from the Fridge, divide and pre-shape, let the dough relax on the bench top for about 40 minutes, and then shape the baguettes. I follow that with an ambient proof en couche for 60-75 minutes.
Happy new year !
So all went well, but not as planned. I wanted to do a "normal loaf" and some marbled baguettes. So I prepared everything, "normal version" went well, no worries. During my stretch and folds I realized though, that the dough I had infused with red wine and rosemary was far too high hydration to shape anything... so it went straight into a bread pan.
As you can see, I at least think, the result is pretty ok. Taste wise the marbled bread was a HIT, and the oven sprong not too bad! So be aware, that if you substitute water with anything else, keep in mind that hydration might vary (I did cook the wine with some fresh rosemary twigs for aroma).
Hope this info might help anyone ;O) but am also sure that most of you all ready knew this!