After many attempts and some frustration I completely gave up on trying to attain the mythical crumb of the “real artisan” baker. I like dense bread best anyway. So I don’t stretch fold and I don’t do separate proof. With very long ferment, the dough gets incredibly slack plus I use only fairly coarse, home ground, whole grain flour, all the chaff etc included. If I try to do anything to it after it has risen, no matter what I do it does not rise back, even if I do first ferment relatively short time. I don’t think my starter is the problem as it is very active and bread rises reasonably fast first time. I ferment first then put it in fridge because somewhere I got the idea that as fermentation progresses, and acidity increases, the “sour” making, complex flavor making bugs more and more predominate. So those are the ones I want perking slowly along while I wait and try not to think about eating it! HAH!
I take total weight of flour and add starter the contains 1% of that amount of flour, hydrated to approximately same amount as the full loaf. Also, since dough gets extra slack with 12-15 hours ferment, I go slightly lower on hydration than I otherwise would. For kamut 70%, for rye 85% is what I have been using. Depending on ambient temp, of course the total time varies but what I am looking for is maximum rise, just a little before it would start to collapse back a bit. And that is taking account of the fact that it will still rise a small amount in the cold.
I usually only let it warm up an hour or so and sometimes not at all.
My overall m.o. is to use a bread pan or some sort of container since my flours all tend towards the extensible while being not very elastic (kamut and einkorn) though rye is neither an almost more like batter than dough IMAO (the A stands for amateur). Anyway, I just toss everything into a big bowl, flour, water, starter, any adds, (never use salt, long story in itself), mix until fully wetted out and then knead just a minute or so for fun. Then I put it into a parchment lined pan and cover well and done. After the first long ferment, it goes in the fridge for retardation then out and bake. No drama.