Okay, I had this starter of mine that was strong and vigorous, and baked several batches of great bread, into the fridge.
A week later, it has fallen in size after initial growth, and became very sour and acidic. I refreshed it and made levain with the part of it, mixing 1:2:2 twice with 8-hour intervals.
The resulting starter was not very active the way it was before refrigeration, but I decided yesterday to give it a go.
So this is what happened.
00h00m: mixed everything as usual
00h30m: first stretch fold
01h00m: second coil fold
every 30m till
02h30m: fifth coil fold
then I left the dough on countertop to speed up bulk
04h00m: slight puffiness
06h00m: no further increase
12h00m: about 20% increase
16h00m: still about 20% increase
then I went to sleep, and when I came back:
22h00m: 2.5x increase, great looking dough
Excited, I went ahead to preshape, and this is when all was gone. The dough deflated to its original size, became runny, no gluten at all. It was fully destroyed. It wouldnt hold shape no matter what I tried and no matter how much flour I used.
So had to discard.
What were my options to prevent this from happening?
1) Is retarding the dough in the fridge easier on gluten? It would have taken over 24 hours to complete the bulk but would the dough be stronger gluten wise?
2) Would it help to make it lower hydration? This one was 75%.
I’m no expert, but I think leaving the dough out I’d not the way to go in bulk fermentation because your starter essentially overactivates and you overproof your dough, so it deflates. What I usually do is after the final fold I put it in the fridge overnight, then shape it the next day put it into my basket and return it to the fridge for a day, then bake the next morning. Thi
s is my result.
I would have done the same if I knew that the starter was strong, but the premise here is that starter was not strong, and I wanted to shorten the bulk ferment, not extend it. I was watching the dough all the time (except for last 6-hour stint) and it was not growing even on counter, would definitely take longer if cold-retarded.
The starter probably should have been fed a few times before building the levain. As you said it had become very acidic/sour while in the fridge. What happened there is that the bacteria and yeast ran out of food but the bacteria continued to produce acid. That acid was transferred to your levain because you hadn’t fed it enough times. If the dough is too acidic it negatively affects the dough strength.
I believe your dough became over proofed or over fermented in that very long bulk fermentation that it did at room temperature for 22 hours. During that time the bacteria produced a lot of acid which broke down the strength of your dough so when you went to shape it wasn’t able to hold on to all of that gas that had been produced and it then became runny.
If you keep your starter in the fridge which many of us do because we aren’t baking every day, you’ll want to give it a few really big feeds 2-3 times before building your levain. I will feed it two or three times at a 1:8:8 ratio and let it ferment at 78-80ºF that way the yeast will have a lot of time to really build up in your starter so your levain will be very very active. Also the acidity in your starter having been in the fridge will be diluted out and your starter won’t be too acidic.
You’ll want to bulk ferment a much shorter time than you did. Watch the dough as you did, most recipes you’ll want about a 50% increase in size and watch for signs of fermentation such as bubbles in the dough on the sides of the dough and some of top. Also the dough where it meets the bowl should be convex and not just flat. The dough should feel lively and jiggly when you touch it your shake it gently.
To move the bulk fermentation along you could also bulk ferment it at a warmer temperature say 78-80ºF if you don’t have a fermenting box maybe you can find a warm place in your kitchen like the top of the fridge or maybe in the oven with the light on but with the door ajar using a wooden spoon. If you use the oven with the light on and the door closed it can get way too hot in there over 90ºF when I’ve tested mine.
Many bakers like to cold retard in the fridge after final shaping. This will really help build flavour in your dough and make it much easier to score the next day. Also baking the dough cold from the fridge really helps with oven spring.
Finally, yes lowering the hydration really helps you gain skills and practice that will make it easier in the future to work with higher hydration dough. Try dropping it to 70%, you can still make amazing bread with lower hydration, it isn’t necessary to have high hydration. But high hydration is a lot more difficult for new bakers to work with especially when shaping at least in my experience.
Benny
Yeah, I agree that I should have fed the starter several times.
One more interesting observation. The refrigerated starter was 80% hydration. The ratio used for levain was 1:2:2. In parallel, I re-fed the starter as usual at 1:4:5 to maintain 80%, and you know what? It immediately demonstrated the same level of rise and vigour as pre-fridge. But 1:2:2 and 1:1:1 feeds are not rebouncing yet after 2-3 feedings. Interesting food for thought...
Based on your observations - good rise and activity, then dough deflation - I agree with Hayalshamsi, your dough overproofed overnight. Cold retarding the dough would be your best bet if you want to go the 24 hrs with this recipe. Yes, lower hydration would also help slow down the fermentation, but I don't think it would make it 24 hrs. I've tried a very dry dough with a very small amount of starter, it makes it overnight if I start the dough just before bedtime, but it would not make it 24 hrs.
My prime objective was not the long bulk. I was waiting till the size of the dough increased to the same levels it used to pre-fridge times. And that happened in between 16h and 22h marks - when I was sleeping. And it did overshoot it in the end. I was targeting about x1.8 increase. And the x1.2 it stayed on for 16 hours was too low.
And leaving on the counter was (was it right?) intentional - to have dough rise faster, because I knew it was going to be slow.
When the starter was good before the fridge it would take my dough 4 hours after 4-5 sets of folds to x1.8