I decided I wanted to get my dough going a couple of hours before last night. I thought I could achieve the bulk ferment in those 2.5 hours but the dough was still pretty dense at the end. I was eager to go to bed so I went ahead and shaped the loaf and put it in the fridge in a proofing basket thinking it might go ahead and finish overnight. This morning it still seems very dense and like it hasn't risen much, if at all. Now what. Do I put it on the counter to finish rising? Do I call this all the bulk ferment and reshape in a little bit? My last two loafs were over proofed so I'm wary of that too.
Recipe was 100g of a 100% hydration starter, 500 g flour, 325 g water, 10 g salt. Bulk proof went about 2.5 hours at 73 degrees, 10 hours in the fridge.
and let them proof at room temperature so you can keep an eye on them so they don't over proof. I did something similar on the weekend and baked my loaves at 50% proofed and I got great oven spring. I got the idea of the 50% from one of Dab's posts where he had shaped cold dough that had fermented overnight in the fridge. Worked great!
I'm with Danni3ll3 on this one - reshape and proof where you can see it. Give it a poke after an hour and see how it reacts (are you familiar with the poke test?). If it's all or mostly white flour you can let it proof a little bit more than a whole grain. Sometimes underproofed will give you good oven spring but not so good bread (it might rise in strange ways!).