Unsure what happened to my current batch of dough. I stuck it back in the fridge after taking the photo below…at first, the dough was heading the right direction, but not rising sufficiently… and in the last hour before I intended to preheat the oven, it deflated. May have inadvertently over-proved (which is apparently not that easy to do with sourdough) as the dough as pictured does seem to be “over it.”
This morning:
The plan is underway. I started a fresh dough batch yesterday afternoon which was autolyzed for the evening then both dough and levain refrigerated to slow the process when I ran out of time. This morning I pulled out the new dough and levain and let them set to warm up a little, then combined with the levain and salt (going back to what I know works)… this will be folded 4-7 times over the next few hours.
And On to Plan B:
Not satisfied that the failure above should be tossed, I kept it refrigerated and this morning saw a little action in it… but not much rise. SO in the name of experimentation (and not being willing to wait another 24 hours to see where it goes) I had some fresh sourdough starter from the refresh batch I maintain – so I worked about 30g of this fresh starter into the cool dough, which is pretty elastic – hoping that as it warmed up the new feeding with sourdough starter would get things moving in the right direction.
New plan is to bake two loaves, one this evening from the “repair experiment” and one tomorrow after the new batch has time to bulk ferment once the folds and shaping are complete.
If I’m right that the “failed” dough can be brought back, I suspect its flavor will be distinctly more sour than the loaf I just started, due to its long stay in the fridge and the evidence of some yeast activity still taking place. We’ll see!
Update:
The resurrected dough (“Plan B”) developed well and I preshaped it to put it in a KAF ridged loaf pan to rise… It sat out on the counter covered for about six hours. Once the dough was about an inch over the top of the pan I stuck it in the oven. I tried scissor slashing because the dough was very soft and sticky, so as not to disturb the dough like slashing with a knife would… the dough slumped back nearly immediately but it did help the oven spring anyway.
Baked at 475ºF for 20 then 15 more minutes at 450º F to an internal temp of 207º and it looks promising.
I am letting this loaf cool overnight and will bake the other (which is in the banneton doing its proofing in the fridge) tomorrow about, say, noon. Or whenever it shows itself ready.
Happy with not trashing the dough – have a pretty truly golden-brown loaf – and will be interesting to see how the experience affected the flavor.
Toast!
This morning I sliced into the loaf. Happy with this (and I could have left it another hour or two on the counter for a more open crumb). The sourdough flavor is there with a slight tang to the bread, and the crumb is a little more open than usual…
Makes a nice piece of toast, that’s for sure, and holds the butter well.
Still to come…
More on the later dough when it’s ready for its bake. I’m leaving it in the fridge much longer to see what happens to the crumb when allowed to go its own way slowly.
Rust (truly) Never Sleeps 