This isn’t, strictly speaking, about a fail. Lat’s call it a potential fail. I just this afternoon put together a loaf comprised of 2:1 whole grain (rye/red fife):bread flour. It’s a higher proportion than I’ve used before. My starter was super active. The 70% hydration dough acted nicely during stretch’n’fold and handled easier than I’d experienced before.
Now the problem-ish: it rose about 50% in an hour in an oven-light-warmed oven (~90ºF); and before you say “Too warm!” let me report that I had just made a loaf (80%white/20%rye) with the same starter, same bulk situation, and it took about 3 hours to rise ~30%.
But what really brings me here: I just checked the dough retarding in a 37ºF refrigerator and it seems to have risen nearly 50% in just 4 hours! This concerns me as I’ve never seen or heard of this happening before and it raises the onus of over-proofing; but I’m too new at this to make a real-world assessment.
So I ask those who know: what’s going on here and do I have a bad bake to look forward to tomorrow morning?
Because the mass of dough was quite warm at 90°F, it is going to take quite a long time to drop to 37°F and thus during that time it will continue to ferment. You won’t know if it is going to be over fermented until you bake it. If you want to get the temperature of the dough down faster, you can place it in the freezer for 30-60 mins and then transfer it to the fridge,
Good luck.
Benny
Mmm. Yeah. Didn’t think of that. It rose so fast in bulk that it caught me unawares. Ach, well, I guess we’ll find out in a few hours when my oven’s available. FYI it did stop rising after that initial call for help.
Just curious, any idea why it bulked so quickly? That’s never happened to me before. Was it because of a very active starter? With all that whole grain I was expecting a lesser rise than usual.
So I baked it today and thought you’d be interested in seeing the result.
The rise and crumb were not what one would shoot for under normal circumstances, i.e. without all that whole grain, but I’m certainly not disappointed. That’s in large measure because I wasn’t completely optimistic about the outcome. But it’s fine. I am not obsessed with details so I’m not hard to please. It tastes excellent so I may stick with this recipe for the foreseeable future. I’ve been less than enthusiastic about consuming that much white flour, so I’m happy to find something I can make with that much whole grain.
All that said, I wonder what happened during the hours beforehand? The final rise is lower than when I dumped it out of the banneton and, again, the crumb is pretty tight. I wonder, would it have come out higher and more open if I hadn’t let it rise as much as it did in bulk given the assumption that the rise continued until the dough could fully cool?
Also, I wonder if I didn’t score it deep enough. Would that have allowed more opening and therefore higher rise? Although I saw a loaf by someone who experimented with no score at all and it had a good rise (go figure)
With more whole grain there are more nutrients for the microbes and as a result, typically the dough will ferment more quickly all other things being equal.
Considering the loaf is 2:1 whole rye/whole red fife I think you did exceptionally well. Rye has next to no gluten and red fife isn’t the best in terms of being able to ferment a long time.
Your loaf has a great oven spring and the crumb is better than what I would have expected from your grain composition. You should be very pleased.
Well alrighty then. Thanks! I am quite pleased with how it turned out, really. Especially given the fact that I feared I completely messed up in bulk. And it is quite delicious. I will take heart in your assessment and may institute it as the house loaf.
Although I do have a bag of Einkorn in the pantry I was thinking I would substitute that for the red fife. I wonder what that sounds like to you?
As you probably figured, I come across these odd flours and just want to use them to see what happens. Went through a bag of Manitoba that way.
Much less gluten, so it will be challenging to get the same oven spring and height if you replace the red fife with einkorn. You’ll also likely get more spread of the loaf as well. Likely a tighter less open crumb.
I follow this other sourdough dude and he baked a 70% white / 30% einkorn and it came out quite well. He also said a lower hydration might be helpful. But I’m hearing so much about its unique flavor I think I’d go with a bit more. Whatever, I’m eager to bake-up an einkorn. Just have to get through all these other loaves I made! Thanks for your input!
Wow, thanks Melissa. Now I REALLY want to make one of these. But I must exercise patience!
As I implied above I’m always overly-exuberant when I come across something new. This yecora rojo falls into this category. But I went to the linked page and do I understand correctly it’s only available (thru Breadtopia at least) in whole berries? A home mill is beyond my level of involvement here for now so, I won’t be getting that, but do you know of a milled source or at least something comparable? Or would red fife fill the bill?
Oops. Nevermind. I forgot the first rule of the Internet: do your own search before asking questions. As soon as sent this I did that and immediately found Barton Springs Mill. Presumably there are others below that but yeah, I’ll be ordering a few pounds of it
