April 21, 2024 - 2:34pm
Let's Play a game. What would you do?
Round two.
This morning, I took the "unfed" leftover levian and mixed up a batch. I qualify "unfed" because The levian only missed one feeding, and only by a few hours. The house was warm this morning, mostly due to bacon prep in the oven. This gave the Bosch mixer dough a good headstart. Here we are at the end of bulk, four hours later.
Now let's play a game. I expect some answers guys. No sitting back, lurking in the background. Come out and play!
What would you do?
Remember it's now only 2:00 PM.
A. Final shape & refrigerate until early morning 5-6 AM.
B. Final shape & refrigerate only eight hours for a bake off tonight around Ten P.M. ?
What say you?
The first photo is of yesterday's successful exercise.using well fed Forkish style levian.
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Final shape and bake when ready. It'll be cooled by bedtime.
Paul
You know, Paul. I always feel like the dough is a little too puffy to score efficiently if I leave the cold fermented longer that 10-12 hours. My cold proofer is a new model, higher end refrigerator. The digital display tells me I am proofing at 36°F. That being said, yesterday's bake the dough had that over puffy feel, yet the crumb says on point fermented. I just posted a crumb reveal in my blog of yesterday's bake.
C.... Interesting. I will retreat to my lodge smoke the pipe and contemplate this information.
(I kill me!)
Salutations,
Will Falzon
Were you scoring and baking cold from the fridge? Scoring shouldn't be much of a problem when the loaf is cold.
If you meant that it seems puffy when you brought the bulk-fermented tub out of the cold, then I suggest letting the loaf finish proofing the last say 15 minutes uncovered. Also you might consider pressing on the dough more firmly than usual while shaping.
TomP
It all depends on the needs of your schedule. I've done both A and B. If you retard overnight, the bread will probably have more flavor and be a bit more sour. Either way, I would let the loaf proof for about an hour before retarding it. For B, I would want to let it proof a little longer first.
TomP
The bulk fermentation is done at room temperature. The well shaped loaves are placed directly into the refrigerator. I slash cold out of the cooler. I really doubt this is a mechanics of shaping issue. That being said the only way I can describe is loose wrinkled saggy skin. Thanks for your help.
The Poke Test
Four hours sounds short for a room temperature bulk ferment. I'm more likely to see 5 - 7 hours. That would be for a 25 - 30% inoculation. I wonder how it is that your BF is so short. Maybe it's just the room temperature. Mine has been running 71 - 72 degrees F lately.
This morning at the start of bulk room temperature was up around 76° F. It went down from there to around 74F. Did you watch the poke test video? T Minus 10 minutes until preheat sequence.
I leave it in the hands of the bread Gods.
Poke test - personally I would have proofed a little longer. Of course that might have made slashing a little harder. I don't see these loaves as being unduly puffy or saggy. OTOH, they don't seem particularly airy, either. 'Course it's hard to tell from just a phone video.
You've probably picked up from other posts that I like to proof loaves free-standing. That's just a foible of mine, I suppose. Is that something you've tried and rejected?
TomP
The formula from today's exercise and yesterdays is the same for all intents and purposes. This underscores the importance of fermentation timing! We will chat about cold ferment temperature tomorrow. Thanks for chatting!
Will F.
Ears - looks like you've got both of mine already, I have no more to loan! I can see signs of the surface having been sticky or grabby as the blade slashed them. Lovely.
I'd still like to see more color in the crust, but maybe that's just me.
TomP
I agree with more dusting the flour. Thanks for the helpful input.
Your phone probably has a photo app that could adjust the white balance and saturation. You might be able to get the colors more like they seemed to your eye.
Pretty nice-looking crumb, Will.
Aside from the sloppy artistic bits (scoring) These, as in bakes using Forkish EIB Style country bread, are turning out about as good as I could hope. The next challenge, now that aI am confident with timings, as well as look and feel is to make some EIB country style baguettes.