Last night I made my leaven from my mother starter (1 T starter, 75 g water, 75 g flour) but I got home late and mixed it around midnight. It's 9am where I am and a little chilly (low 60s) so it's not yet ready for me to start the autolyse. However, I'm going to be away from the house for a while and probably won't be back until late afternoon. Will this be too late for my leaven? Will "over ripe" leaven not work for sourdough? If so, should I just start over when I get home and make another leaven earlier in the night? Or should I feed my leaven?
I'm pretty new to sourdough bread making (I've just made my 3rd batch and it was the only one that was super successful), so any advice is welcome!
I don't know if this is relevant, but this was my planned timeline:
- Autolyse: 2 hours
- Bulk ferment: a couple hours on the counter, then over night in the fridge (it worked well for me the last time I did it)
- Preshape rest: 30min - 1hr for it to get back to room temp
- Shaping and final proof: 1.5-4 hours, until it passes the finger poke test
- Bake
It will slow things down and you should be fine using it from the fridge later just either let it rest for an hour or so to warm back up when you return or allow longer for your bulk ferment.