Hey everybody,
Hope y'all are doing great! I've been working hard at trying to find a fine balance of delayed fermentation without losing too much gluten structure. Something I learned about not long ago was protease. Which was affecting the gluten network of my bread due to possible over-fermentation. Do I want a very open holed crumb, or do I want a more closed holed crumb. So I came to came to the conclusion...I want both!! HAHA!!
So trying to balance my work schedule around baking bread and getting the results I desire was my next challenge. A few experiments later and I came up with some pretty descent results.
As a sandwich lover, and a homemade mayo lover, my bread prefernece would be a more close holed even crumb, for obvious reasons. Like mayo dripping through the holes and onto my face. Pretty obvious right! But I also love the beautiful classic open holed crumb as well, which actually is my favorite. So for certain sandwiches I just switch between both styles of bread.
So here are some pictures and recipes of two bakes, utilizing cold delayed fermentation.
Bake one:
As you can see above, nice bloom.
As you can see below, nice open style crumb.
Bake two:
As you can see above, nice bloom.
As you can see below, nice even closed crumb.
Recipe's:
Bake one:
Organic Bread Flour 1200g 60%
Organic Whole Grain Stone Ground Red Fife 600g 30%
Starter @ 100% hydration (Organic Bread Flour) 400g 20%
Water 1100g 55%
Salt 40g 2%
Total Flour 2000g 100%
Total Water 1300g 65%
Day one:
1. 6:00am feed starter and keep out at room temp.
2. Go to work!
3. Get home. 4:00pm mix flour and water together. Autolyse for 1 hour.
4. Mix flour, starter and salt. Rest for 10 minutes.
5. Dump out of bowl. Do 1 stretch and fold, cover and rest for 20 minutes.
6. Continue to do 5 more stretch and folds with 20 minute rest periods in between. Basically 1 stretch and fold every 20 minutes. Works out to be 6 stretch and folds within 2 hours.
7. Put in bowl and bulk rise at room temp for 2 hours.
8. Put in fridge and retard until I get home from work next day. About 20-22 hours.
Day 2:
1. Take out of fridge, dump out on counter, cut four equal pieces (I scaled mine at around 800g each), lightly pat down to deflate a little, stretch and fold, tension pull and shape and place in bannetton's. Proof for about 1.5 hours (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less).
2. Pre-heat dutch ovens for about an hour to 500 degrees.
3. Take out dutch ovens, flip dough out of bannetton's into your hand, place in dutch ovens, score loafs, place dutch ovens with lid on back in oven and bake at 500 degrees for 20 minutes.
4. After 20 minutes take lids off dutch ovens and bake for an additional 15-30 minutes at 375 degrees.
5. When ready take out of dutch ovens and let cool overnight
Bake two:
Organic Bread Flour 1200g 60%
Organic Whole Grain Stone Ground Rye Flour 600g 30%
Starter @ 100% hydration (Organic Bread Flour) 400g 20%
Organic Blackstrap Molasses 100g 5%
Water 1000g 50%
Salt 40g 2%
Total Flour 2000g 100%
Total Water 1300g 65% (5% from the molasis)
Day one:
1. 6:00am feed starter and keep out at room temp.
2. Go to work!
3. Get home. 6:00pm mix flour and water together. Autolyse for 2 hours.
4. Mix flour, starter, molasis and salt. Rest for 10 minutes.
5. Dump out of bowl. Do 1 stretch and fold, cover and rest for 20 minutes.
6. Continue to do 5 more stretch and folds with 20 minute rest periods in between. Basically 1 stretch and fold every 20 minutes. Works out to be 6 stretch and folds within 2 hours.
7. Put in bowl and bulk rise at room temp for 45 minutes.
8. Put in fridge and retard until I get home from work next day. About 19-20 hours.
Day 2:
1. Take out of fridge, dump out on counter, cut four equal pieces (I scaled mine at around 800g each), lightly pat down to deflate a little, stretch and fold, tension pull and shape, and place in bannetton's. Proof for about 1.5 hours (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less).
2. Pre-heat dutch ovens for about an hour to 500 degrees.
3. Take out dutch ovens, flip dough out of bannetton's into your hand, place in dutch ovens, score loafs, place dutch ovens with lid on back in oven and bake at 500 degrees for 20 minutes.
4. After 20 minutes take lids off dutch ovens and bake for an additional 15-30 minutes at 375 degrees.
5. When ready take out of dutch ovens and let cool overnight
I know the flours are different, but I have done the exact same bake with rye flour as in bake one and still have gotton a very open crumb structure.
So it seems by reducing the bulk fermentation at room temperature from 2 hours, down to 45 minutes made a huge impact on the crimb structure. I only reduced cold fermentation by about an hour or two. Whether or not this makes a huge difference, not sure. And also autolysed for an extra hour which not sure if it makes a huge difference.
Anyways, this is open for debate. Love to hear from you!
Cheers!
Dave