Hello,
I am baking sourdough sometime now and what I usually do is little starter, 10-12 hours BF, cold proof and bake, since I don't have time during the week. When I have time in the weekend, I try more starter and less BF times.
Since I always change the type of flour I use (and hydration) for experimenting, I cannot figure out by myself, what is "better" (if there is such a thing though).
Use more starter (ie 20%) so as to ferment in 4-5-6 hours, or use less and ferment longer? I believe flavor will be better in a longer fermentation time. Does anything else change?
Thanks
I use the Sponge & Dough method - 20% sponge overnight on the worktop mixed in the morning with the rest of the ingredients. Autolyse 1hr, BF 2 hr and prove to 85%. The whole process takes about 18 hr and the results are consistently good.
When you use different flours, hydrations and amounts of starter for each bake, it becomes much harder to tell how much of the differences from loaf to loaf are due to each change.
Also, you can use your fridge to help fit your doughs' timings to your schedule. I quite often proof until nearly ready to bake then refrigerate and bake from cold. At first, this required watching the dough quite a bit, but this lessened with experience as I got better at estimating how long various doughs will take to reach the nearly ready to bake stage.
ok this was another question I had regarding fridge times.
How slowly does a dough ferments in a fridge? For example if I want to make a pizza dough with sourdough. Can I use 20% starter, kneed and leave the dough in the fridge for 24 hours? Or is it better to ferment at room temperature for let's say 4-5 hours shape and let in the fridge for 15-24 hours?
I tend to use a large amount of starter in most of my dough and bulk ferment in the fridge overnight. While I have found a small amount to work fine as well I like my method and it works very well for me. You can read my recipes here on TFL or on my blog at www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com
ok so I make a small test yesterday.
A dough for some pizza to be baked in the afternoon. 300g flour (50g of the flour was semolina) 67% hydration, 8% starter, 1.5% salt, 1.5%oil.
autolysis for 20 minutes the mixing with a machine for 6 minutes and directly after 2 S&F. I put it for BF and did a S&F after 2 hours. Dough was extensible (so gluten was developed) and feels like silk. After 12 hours of BF I cut it in two parts and did a pre-shape. Dough felt very sticky (which wasn't in the last S&F) and stuck a little bit in the bench. Now is in the fridge for proofing until afternoon.
If the dough is sticky after the BF is this a sign for something? Maybe overfermented?
Thanks