Man, it’s that time of year again. When the leaves are covering trees, the rain gives way to late spring heat that reminds one of the dog days of summer, and of course over proofed hot dough.
For the uninitiated out there, let me explain the horrors of this time of year regarding temperature changes. For those who know all about this, let me share in your rollercoaster of emotions over a course of baking in a week.
As the temperatures transition from a cold Minnesota winter (this year actually wasn’t as bad as it usually is) the rise in temperature unironically affects the rise of the dough. As this weather changes so too do your bulk fermentation, starter doubling times, and cold retardation timing. Pertaining to the cold retardation, more on that in a moment!
For me, I got the painful reminder to be checking not only my dough temps and starter feedings, but also the water temperature when I mix the dough. This occurred last week when I wanted to make focaccia which for me, involves me feeding my starter the night before, then mixing the dough the morning before I wanted to bake in the evening. See schedule below:
- Feed starter evening enough for focaccia recipe (between 250-1000 depending on the batch size)
- Mix the focaccia dough the next morning typically at 5-6am
- Place in pans and allow rise for 8-12 hours (usually…reason for blog is this time period)
- Bake in the evening!
Now, typically during the winter, I need all 8-12 hours of fermentation for my focaccia to get nice and bubbly. However, for those who work with enough dough, you’ll know how much temperature impacts your dough. It gets to a point where you need to treat temperature as an ingredient. Flour, water, starter, salt, mix ins, time, & temperature. It’s that important.
I got lulled into a false sense of temperature security by turning on the warm water and mixing my focaccia the morning of my bake. All winter long, I needed warm (not hot, don’t want to kill any yeast in your starter) water to get my bread to bulk ferment in 5-6 hours. So, I threw on the warm water, filled up a pitcher, and mixed my dough with the water! I didn’t take a temp of the water with my thermometer but I’m guessing it was around 90-95 degrees which is pretty typical out of our faucet.
After mixing, I went to work thinking of nothing other than fresh baked focaccia in the evening. I was in for a rude awakening.
I came back to a proverbial volcano of overflowing focaccia dough. Of course, I panicked and immediately threw on the oven to try and bake the focaccia as fast as I could. Long story short, it ended up turning out just fine! However, my dough was on the cusp, on the literal verge of over proofed. I’ve made over proofed focaccia in the past and it’s fine. But not great, light, and airy like it should be which thankfully, this time mine turned out to be just that.
Moral of the story: check your dough and water temps. Treat them like another ingredient. Think you’re too good to check your dough and water temps? I once was impetuous as you are, my friend. I have been checking all temps for years now and yet, I fell into that impetuousness of not thinking about AMBIENT temperatures. Especially for dough that I am fermenting for 8-12 hours at room temperature.
In conclusion, no matter what kind of dough you’re prepping, consider time and temperature of mixing the ingredients. Not only that but consider the temperature and the time needed for the dough to ferment. If your ingredients are warm, thus making your dough warm, your overall fermentation will be shorter. It’s exactly the opposite of what you’ll experience during the winter, especially if you have an old cold house such as ours!
Last item to note: Cold retardation/fermentation
This happened to me about a month ago. I was prepping some loaves which were consistently sitting at about 78-80 degrees entering the 3-4th hour of bulk fermentation. That was when the power went out which didn’t come back on till the next morning. Nevertheless, I needed to shape and toss them in the fridge to hopefully cool down.
I did shape them and get them into the fridge at about the usual end time of bulk fermentation. To compensate for the temperature lost in the fridge from the power outage, I threw in several ice packs to try to cool the whole fridge down. That was still not enough to stop the dough from over proofing.
I do not intend to bore anyone with the details of how long it takes dough to cool down in the fridge as there are a ton of great resources out there. However, I want to add in how you need to consider the time and temperature when going to cold proof your dough if you so choose. It will impact how quickly your dough will come down in temperature and not over proof whilst in the fridge.
Go on out and enjoy baking in this rollercoaster of weather we’ve been receiving (specifically in the Midwest). If you happen to read this, maybe you’ll start to consider temperature and time as ingredients or perhaps you’ll continue to be as impetuous as I once was before I was humbled by the ambient temperature.
Big Stretch Bakery 