I’m trying to retard the No Knead Sourdough bread recipe, but can’t figure out when and how to do it. Do I refrigerate instead of the overnight proof at room temp or do I refrigerate it instead of the steam treatment?
Many thanks in advance.
Sandi
Out of curiosity (and also to help in answering your question), why do you want to retard the dough?
I’ve replied directly to Paul, but wanted to get the answer out to the forum. I’ve read that retarding the dough adds complexity and increases the sourness of the dough. Most refrigerate the dough during the second rise, but the no-knead sourdough recipe requires the shaped dough to go in the oven with boiling water under it. I can’t do both!
I might be misunderstanding what you are saying, but if I’m not, then you might be misunderstanding what most mean by what you are calling “the second rise”.
Conventionally there are are two periods of “rise” in bread baking: after you mix the dough there is a period that most people refer to as “bulk rise” or “bulk fermentation” or “first rise” or “first proof” which usually takes place in a mixing bowl or a dough bucket of some kind.
Then you normally remove the dough from the bowl / bucket and shape the loaf and put it into some kind “proofing basket” (or “banneton” or “brotform”) for the (usually shorter) “second rise” or “second proof”.
After that the dough is transferred from the proofing basket into the oven in some manner - either into a baking vessel like a clay baker or a dutch oven, or directly onto a baking stone of some kind. When the latter is used, because there is no enclosing vessel to keep steam on the crust, it is sometimes recommended to put some water in the oven with the dough initially to raise the level of humidity in the oven. This is happening AFTER the second proof.
With regard to retarding the dough, you can actually do it any time before you put it in the oven and there are arguments for doing it at different times. But it mostly comes down to your scheduling. Putting the dough in the fridge (retarding) dramatically slows down the fermentation process. So it necessarily elongates the required proofing time by many (many) hours. You can work those hours into your overall baking schedule to suit your needs.
I’m feeling like a bit of a repetitive hack here because it seems like I now post this link daily (and I apologize to regular forum dweller who must be getting sick of seeing this over and over), but I wrote an article that tries to explain some of these basics of sourdough bread baking. You can read it here:
Thank you for your prompt reply. I will retard the dough prior to putting the dutch oven in the oven with boiling water under it for the final rise.
Many thanks,
Sandi
Hi Sandy,
I have read people suggest that the final rise be extra warm maybe in a enclosed space and next to boiling water to increase the temperature of that enclosed space… Is that what you’re talking about?
I’m using the Cook’s Almost No Knead Sourdough recipe, where the dough is formed and left to rise overnight 12-16 hours at room temp. (14 hours works best for me) Then take dough, knead 10-15 times, then put in Dutch Oven with boiling water in loaf pan under it and plastic over the bowl, and put it in cool oven for 2-3 hours. 2 hours works best for me. Then cover Dutch Oven with lid, turn on oven to 425 and bake for 30 min. Uncover Dutch Oven and continue to bake until brown. I wondered where the “refrigerate to retard” comes into this recipe in order to increase the sourness.
Sorry this seems to be a bit of a bother. I apparently wasn’t clear. I will try various times to refrigerate in the recipe and see which one actually works. It’s only flour and water after all.
Many thanks
Sandi
Gotcha I think I’ve actually watched that episode of America’s Test Kitchen 
The water in that scenario it’s not steaming the dough, just raising the temperature of your “proofing box” aka your oven in this case. Warmer temperature means faster proofing.
The dough doesn’t need this heat, though. If you prefer a longer fermentation which enhances flavors you can stick your whole Dutch oven into the refrigerator instead for probably 8-16 hours… You’ll have to get a sense of when the dough looks puffy and the way you want it to look during a retarded proof.
Dutch ovens are pretty heavy… So you might line a bowl with heavily floured tea towel, put your dough in that instead and cover it with plastic or put it in a plastic bag. And leave that in the refrigerator. When it’s time to bake, flip the dough into the base of your dutch oven.
Hope this helps!
It is a tremendous help. I can’t thank you enough for this post!! I see the big picture now, and can proceed with knowledge plus confidence. I wish you the best.
Sandi
You’re welcome! I’d love to hear how it goes. You’ll find that scoring cold dough is much easier. Cold dough also tends to look a little less puffy because the cold compresses the gases.
Will do - maybe even a photo!
Thanks!
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Made my first attempt at retarding a sourdough bread. Needs a little tweaking to get it right, but am happy with the results and seem to be on the right track. Very tasty - and a definitely more developed flavor. Thanks, Melissa, for explaining the process.
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That looks awesome! I’m glad it had a noticeably different flavor too. So cool.
Another fun thing to do, which didn’t occur to me until I was years into baking, is a mid-temp-range retarding. It started out as wanting to sleep, but realizing that at its current pace, my dough would be done with the bulk fermentation sometime around 3am. Fridge retarding during the bulk fermentation is always an option but it reaaaallly slows things down (fine unless you need bread by a certain time). So, I had the dough finish its bulk fermentation outside in my grill overnight when I knew the temp was going to be in the 40s and 50s. It was (and is still) guesswork but it’s fun to have that option too. Eventually for this year’s panettone project, I got more high tech, though not quite as snazzy as @DennisM 's setup in this thread: Dedicated Home Retarder
Ya, all during the summer I am proofing overnight in my basement which is something like 10F cooler than my kitchen. I think it probably makes around a 1-2 hour difference in bulk timing with my setup and methods.
Why don’t you go very long ferment by dropping the starter down to 0.5 - 1% of the flour. So no need for refrigeration. At that percentage you can get upto 24 hours bulk ferment. Start early evening the day before you wish to bake, mix the dough and leave it. come the next morning give one set of stretch and folds then you can watch it through the day but don’t need to be too concerned before the 20 hour mark. Then shape, final proof and bake.
I actually find a room temperature ferment tastier than fridge time. If I do fridge time it’s more out of convenience.
My bigger inoculations are mostly a function of old habits die hard and then those cool overnight ferments are the result of “huh, what was I thinking, mixing up a dough at 6 pm?” You’re right, I should just use a tiny amount of starter at that point.
I currently mix up the dough at 6PM, allow it to rest at room temp until 8AM, then do the 2nd rise in the oven with steam under it to create heat. The bread is ready to be baked at 10AM… I’ve been very happy with the results, but the timing is not always convenient. My initial posts were an attempt to have the bread ready to bake at 2-3 in the afternoon by retarding the dough at some point. Many thanks to all of you who have shared your knowledge. I’m learning and enjoying the process, and I’ve managed to get to the 2-3PM timeframe.
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