Pete, thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I am now confused.
Mr. Lehmann, in his PMQ response, clearly seems, to me, to be talking about making emergency dough in a commercial setting,
The reason why I don't recommend mixing an emergency dough longer (to full gluten development) is because then the dough would be excessively soft and even sticky. With the increased temperature, and the increased mixing the dough would just be a mess to work with. Ask any bread baker who always mixes his dough to full development) what his dough would be like if he allowed the dough to get into the 90 to 95F temperature range during mixing.
and specifically notes that the temperature of a fully mature can get to 95F, which is the reason for not mixing to full development.
When Mr. Lehmann switches to advice on the home front, he says this:
As for home baking of pizza, there is no need to mix the dough to full development unless you REALLY need the exercise. Even the artisan bread bakers now advocate mixing the dough just until it comes smooth and then allowing it to ferment in the fridge overnight. This isn't to say that you can't do it, but it just isn't necessary, and I'm all for following the path of least resistance.
There, he seems to be saying not to bother mixing to full development in a home setting, but to use an overnight cold fermentation.
So what does one do for an emergency dough if one needs one? In the first half of his answer, Mr. Lehmann seems to be saying that biomechanical glutanation will suffice for an emergency dough in a commercial setting. This assumption seems to be affirmed by this anecdote:
Yep, that was the bakery in Romania...I saw what appeared to be at least 60 bowls, about 1 meter across, and about equally as deep, with two men, each armed with a wood agitator (looked a little like a baseball bat, only longer) mixing, or shall I say, stirring, the dough to an oatmeal like consistency, then moving on to the next mixing station and repeating the process. After about three hours of fermentation, the dough was ready to go to the bench for portioning and making up into some wonderful tasting bee hive bread. Bio-chemical gluten development rocks!
That is all well and good, but what about the home setting? There is ambiguity in Mr. Lehmann's answer. The emergency dough thread is no help, the mixing suggestions are all over the map. Some recipes are vague, some make no suggestion at all. Pizza Shark advocates a long knead and notes that it is virtually impossible to overknead home dough. Steve uses my method: 30 minute autolyse, 30 seconds in the food processor, a couple of minutes hand knead.
In my experience, under kneading a so-called emergency dough in a home setting leads to disaster. You must go to windowpane. Contrary to your assertion that mixing with a food processor will be more likely to heat the dough to unacceptable levels, as Steve points out, and in my experience, you only need 30 seconds, and then some hand kneading. If the water is chill, the dough won't go over 76-78 degrees. Yeast quantity, and a warmer room temp will compensate for the cool dough temp and still get you the quick rise.
This all leads to a pet peeve of mine, in that cold fermentation cannot be a simple substitution for a room temperature rise, and that the term "emergency dough" is somewhat of a misnomer. A dough mixed to rise at room temp in an hour or two is an emergency dough. Anything over that is a same day dough, and is a very different critter than a cold fermented dough.
Flavor in dough comes mainly through bacterial fermentation. There are two types of lactic bacteria that produce the acids that flavor dough: homofermentative and heterofermentative. Homofermentative bacteria thrive in temperatures in the 70-95F range, and produce lactic acid, which is mild, and similar to the tangy flavor one gets in yogurt. Heterofermentative bacteria thrive at 50-65F, and produce both lactic and acetic acid, which is sharp, and similar to the flavor one gets in vinegar.
The temperature at which you choose to ferment your dough favors one type of bacterial activity over the other, and leads to different flavors in the dough. I personally do not like sourdough, so I prefer a process that encourages the production of lactic acid and minimizes acetic acid. A long room temperature rise of 5-8 hours gives me the flavor profile I am looking for, which would be impossible with a cold-fermented dough.
This is why I have problems with authors like Reinhart, who should be explaining stuff like this and doesn't. He leaps on overnight cold fermentation as some sort of revolutionary breakthrough and panacea without really explaining the science behind the method that would allow the novice to make an informed choice. Please note that Reinhart's pain l'ancienne is a complete bastardization and misunderstanding of Philip Gosselin's brilliant and revolutionary method of making baguettes, but that is the subject for another post.
Pete, you are, of course, vastly more informed than I, so I would appreciate your comments on this matter, given that I could be all over the map.
