Hi everybody,
I've been baking bread with satisfactory results for a while now but I'm just starting to experiment with making sourdough bread and my own starter. Since I had had such good results with some of the recipes in Water, Flour, Salt, Yeast that are not sourdough breads, I decided to start my sourdough baking using the same book.
Big disappointment :(
I halved the recipe for the Overnight Country Blondie ( there is not enough room in my oven to bake this guy's full size recipes!) other than that I followed the instructions to the letter. Well, you can see what I ended up with in the photo above. I have never had an over proofed dough before. Has anybody have this results with this recipe??? I guess I shouldn't have trusted the 4 hours proofing directed in the recipe and trusted the finger test instead.
And one more question: I did the bulk fermentation in the refrigerator even when he doesn't specify it in the recipe because that's the way I have always seen it done in other recipes, was I wrong??
As always any input from all of you experienced bakers is greatly appreciated.
"...I followed the instructions to the letter".
"And one more question: I did the bulk fermentation in the refrigerator even when he doesn't specify it in the recipe because that's the way I have always seen it done in other recipes, was I wrong??"
Bulk fermentation should be done at the room temperature.
There are two discussions in Fresh Loaf: one started by dmsnyder (2013) and the other by Flour.ish.en (2015).
David also mentioned that "if a long (12-15 hour) fermentation is the goal, Forkish's procedures need adjustment for a warmer environment."
Flour.ish.en showed a clear and detailed table to compare recipes between Tartine and Forkish.
Thanks Bottleny, I will check those two posts.
I bulk ferment in cold my Forkish based levain breads and it works fine. It's actually kind of dreamy to divide and pre-shape cold dough. It takes some adjusting of the whole timeline though. Start by ignoring his suggested times and look at the dough. Sourdough is extremely TEMPeramental! What happens today can differ largely from what happen tomorrow.
Peace and bread.
I think the key here is to remember you cannot isolate time or temperature. You can ferment at room temperature for a shorter time, in the refrigerator for a longer time. It is always a balance between these two factors.