I've run into a problem converting my yeast breads to sourdough bakes.
So in the morning 9am ish i mix the 500g (~80% KAF 20% WW) with water to autolyse, and feed 20g of rye starter with 40g rye and 40g water.
At around 9pm, i try the float test, and proceed to mix everything together with 2% salt. Method used was about 20 slap and folds, followed by ~5 s&f till about 1130pm.
Then i proceeded to divide, left half to bulk ferment in a container further and the other half i let rise in a banneton (preshaped and shaped), both over night in a fridge.
Morning around 8am, both doughs barely rose! And from doing the poke test, i felt there was a dry layer of skin on the surface.
Could this skin have been too tight to allow a rise? Could it have been my starter?
Since it was a clear container, i could see random bubbles in the fermenting dough. I proceeded to bake the banneton dough, and retarded the other in the fridge till evening time when i could bake that too.
The crumbs both turned out dense, nothing like the texture of my equal hydration yeasted bread.
Where could i have gone wrong?
Autolyze is overly long - probably won't do any harm though.
Starter build time - 12 hours! My rye starter when fed rises and falls inside 4-5 hours max.
I think the main issue though is that there's not enough bulk ferment time before you put it into the fridge. I also think you may need to put things into sealed bags in your fridge (if not already doing so) as it probably has a dehydrator (most frost-free ones do these days).
My daily routine (5-days a week) involves making up the starters at about 3-4pm. Using them at about 8pm to mix/knead the dough, leaving the dough in tubs overnight in a coolish place (18°C seems ideal for my doughs, but right now it's a bit warmer) then in the morning (started at 6am today) it's scale/shape/prove and into the oven at 8am - into the shop by 9am.
-Gordon
Final hydration was at 72%. 310 in with autolyse, 50 from the levain.
The container was uncovered but i oiled the dough. The proofing basket was just covered loosely with plastic.
Length of autolyse (and starter building) is due to me being at work till about 8 or 9pm. It was either a 12 hr autolyse or waiting till i came back and having less time to do S&F over 3 hours and get to bed at a reasonable time. Would this be detrimental to my dough?
Would using less starter to build the levain help extend the building time? (10g 45g 45g for example)
Another obstacle to overcome is that ambient temp here is 79F during the night. Should i be leaving it out to BF or the alternative is into a 41F fridge to BF?
I currently aiming for 60g starter in a 600g final dough. Will try overnight proof in room temp with this proportion. Would this be better?