Hello,
I just watched a video on 'no knead dough'. The man was working with a high hydration dough, and he just mixed it lightly, as I would do before starting stretch and folds, but instead, he just left it at room temp for 12-18 hrs. This bread was made with commercial yeast.
So now I am very confused. I usually make sourdough, and am on the lookout for overfermenting my dough during bulk ferment. But this guy left a commercially yeasted dough on the counter for 12-18 hours, and it was fine. I think I have a poor understanding of how bulk fermentation works. Anyone care to elucidate?
It depends on the amount (ratio) of yeast to the amount of flour to be fermented. Plus you must consider the temperature of the room, flour and water. For example, maybe the man in the video used a tiny bit of yeast and a large batch of flour using cool water to mix in a cool room. All factors to be considered whether using sourdough or commercial yeast.
The long ferment works because the original recipe calls for a very small amount of commercial yeast, so there is plenty of time to ferment, build flavor and not overferment. Other recipes that call for more yeast (commercial or sourdough) will need to have much shorter fermentation times so they do not overferment. If you go to Youtube, the originator of this method/recipe, Jim Lahey, is interviewed by New York Times' Mark Bittman and they discus this specific approach.