March 20, 2024 - 1:16pm
cold fermentation to bake
is it best to let dough come to room temp before baking, or right into the oven from the fridge, or 5 of one and 3/4 of the other, or ...?
One is a multigrain loaf. The other is a higher hydration boule. Both are sponge based. The boule has a bit of yeast in the dough.
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It may depend on whether the dough was nearly fully proofed before freezing, and also if it has been scored before freezing. If it's not fully proofed or scored out of the freezer, you probably want it to warm up and proof more, or warm up enough to score.
I've had pretty good results baking from frozen. Cooking times were increased only a few minutes compared with non-frozen. I noticed some tendency for the loaf to slump sideways, making the baked loaf a bit flat, but the overall inflation was fine. The right scoring patterns can favor upward rise instead of sideways slumping.
TomP
the loaf not proofed at all. The boule not fully proofed before putting in the fridge, not the freezer.
the loaf is scored, lengthwise this time, normally it is X with short scores on the edges, at the middle, lengthwise.
the boule I figured I'd score before baking, whether I let it counter a while or put it right in the oven.
Oh, sorry, don't know why I read it as coming from the freezer. If the loaf was put into the fridge nearly proofed, I would be happy to bake it directly. Otherwise I'd plan to warm it up and let it proof some more.
cool
I've seen several authors recommend that you let the dough come to room temperature before baking, but I almost never do. It will depend largely on your dough and your refrigerator. Colder dough is easier to score, but it does need to be proofed properly for best quality. If you're using commercial yeast in your sponge and they are sufficiently fermented before shaping, you can probably do 100% of the proof in the fridge unless it's very, very cold. Even with 100% sourdough, I refrigerate immediately after shaping and take them out immediately before baking. There may be some aspect of bread quality that I don't know I'm missing from baking from cold, but it makes the process much more flexible for me if I don't have to worry about how long before baking I need to remove it from the fridge.
If you bake straight from the fridge and you find that the bread is underproofed, you can also leave it at room temperature for an hour or so after shaping rather than warming it up before baking.
In my experience fermentation continues for about an hour after the dough or loaf is put into the refrigerator. It takes much longer before the entire dough volume cools down completely but an hour of effective fermentation is a good rule of thumb. Fermentation continues at a much slower pace even in the refrigerator, but for an overnight retardation I don't think that matters. I have seen a ball of dough that had already gone through some bulk fermentation double in the fridge, but that took three or four days.
So I try to put shaped loaves into the chill an hour before they would be fully proofed. Of course there's some guess work in that. If you use a process that works consistently for you, it's easier to know when that will be.
TomP
That hour for you would vary depending on the cold tolerance of the yeasts (commercial or sourdough), the starting temperature of the dough, the temperature of the fridge (which determines how fast the dough chills as well as its final temperature), and the shape and size of the loaf. I agree that you just have to find a process that works consistently based on your situation.
Normally, with the Multigrain, I take it out of the refrigerator and turn the oven on at the same time. Wait for temp then bake.
With the boule, I don't know. Because my work schedule changed it's going to have a 3-day ferment in the refrigerator.
I'm thinking it probably isn't a bad idea to give it an hour as well. It's an experiment. Time will tell.