How important is final dough temperature quiz?

Hi Paul

While I observe the 'watch the dough not the clock' adage I aim for a desired dough temperature so that breadmaking fits into my day (and not the other way round).

I use the water temperature calculator SusanFNP has posted on her WildYeast blog based on Jeffrey Hamelman's guidelines. Her post is worth reading. The calculator is at the bottom.

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/water/

Cheers Robyn

out of FWSY and couldn't understand why not everyone worried about it. I would ask experienced bakers on here what their water, room and dough temps were and I would get answers that they never measured any of it. I was told to watch the dough, not the clock. It took me a while to get it but now I do the same. I try to use relativity warm water but I don't measure it anymore. I use my oven with the light on to ferment my dough (I know that hovers around 82F) and proof overnight in the fridge (set at 37-38 F). The only thing I do measure once in a while is the final loaf temp to ensure it is well baked, especially if I have a lot of wet add-ins. 

The problem with DTT is that it's a parameter which was conceived with large scale baking in mind.  You see, when you make 100-200-300 lb of dough the thermal mass is such that its temperature won't be moved much one way or another by the ambient.  It's somewhat different story when you have two pounds of dough, and your fermentation time is measured in hours.  Granted, most of the time DTT is fairly close to where an average kitchen sits, but if temperature difference is significant, your fermentation is long, and you do S&F your dough may well und colder or warmer than you expected.

So I will check dough temperature on occasion - like when I know that something in my environment is out of whack or the mixing was unusually long but I never try to control it unless I bake some particular ryes that really depend on being fermented in the correct range of temperatures.  Instead, I recalculate fermentation time based on temperature, or adjust percentages of leavening if I want to adhere to a particular schedule.  I also adjust my baking repertoir based on the season - some doughs are just not meant for 95 F days in July..  All in all it gives me much better understanding and feel of baking then trying to force the dough into a 2° temperature range.  Not that I don't have a setup to do just that.

thought and same with water temperature. It dosn't have much to do with baking a loaf of bread every week as suave said above.  I do keep track of my kitchen temerature though so I can get a better handle on how much kevain to use for the method of bread making chosen that week to fit my schedule. 

I often take the temperature of the dough, but forget most of the time. I used to make calculations based on all the important temperatures and adjust water accordingly. But now I am not so much aiming for a certain temperature as much as being conscious of the water temperature. I live in a warm climate and have air conditioning to keep the room temperature pretty consistent. However, the water coming out of the tap is subject to the weather outside. In the summer, this can be quite warm. Sometimes I don't adjust it and just know things are going to go faster in the beginning stages (or especially when feeding my starter). Other times I want to slow things down and will either plan ahead to leave the water out, or I will try to cool it down. I rarely aim for a certain temperature for the dough, but I sometimes take the temperature just to know what to expect that day.

As mentioned above, dough mass has a huge effect on how stable final dough temps are. Large masses of dough can hold a final temp much better than small masses of dough (what most home bakers deal with). So for commercial bakeries, who also often deal in tight production schedules, final dough temp can be very important. For home bakers, dealing with just one or two loaves at a time, ambient temperature tends to be more important since small batches of dough equalize to ambient temps fairly quickly. 

But that's really just a superficial answer -- and it answers a superficial question. The real question is, when and why is dough temp important?

And the answer, as always, depends upon the goals of the baker. Are you dealing with a large volume of dough and a strict production schedule? Then dough temp might be very important. Are you just baking a single loaf at home on a lazy Sunday? Then perhaps not.

But . . . 

Perhaps you prefer the flavor of warmer doughs versus cooler doughs. Or vice versa. If that's the case, does final dough temp matter? Again, that depends. Can you create a specific dough temp and maintain it for the duration of the proof? As mentioned, if you're dealing with very small batches of dough, then dough temp will tend to equalize to ambient temp in fairly short order (depending upon the difference between the two temps and the insulation properties of the prooofing vessel, and the properties of the dough itself).

It really comes down to personal practice. At home, I never take dough temps, nor aim for specific dough temps. Sometimes I might use warm water, while other times I might use cold water, with the aim of creating a warmer or cooler dough based on the ambient temps of the day, among other things. But ambient temp is really what I pay most attention to at home.

At the bakeries I've worked at, on the other hand, I've encountered a wide range of values placed on specific dough temps. Some bakeries prefer dough temps to be exact to the degree. Others don't measure dough temp at all. Personally, I prefer mixing without a predetermined dough temp. The bakeries that require specific dough temps are the bakeries with rigid production schedules.

I don't like that.

I like freedom. I like choice. I like flexibility. I do my best work when I have the ability to rearrange the schedule as I please. In such environments, I mix my dough paying attention primarily to water temp (and ambient temps secondarily). I take no dough temps, instead basing my decisions on the patterns and circumstances at play. While such a mixing style has a much longer learning curve than those that fall into a predetermined and temperature based method, it allows for much more adaptability and consistency in the long run. 

But again . . .

How important is dough temp to your bread's character? If you have a bread with a certain flavor profile that can only be attained at a certain dough temp, then that temperature becomes pretty damn important (assuming you can maintain it for the duration of proof, of course). If your bread is more relaxed, and allowed a wider range of flavors and other characteristics, then dough temp only matters in so much as it affects the day's production (whether at home or in the bakery). 

So really, the only question that actually matters is, how important is final dough temp to you?

Cheers!

Trevor