retarding sourdough dough

[abilak]

So, I recently created my own whole wheat based sourdough starter, that has now been fed with KA white unbleached flour. I usually make the lehmann style NY pizza dough with yeast, and retard it in the frig for 3-6 days, then take the dough out 1 hour before use.

My question is, if I make a dough using the sourdough starter, no commercial yeast, can I follow the same process. Create dough balls then transfer to tupperware containers and into the frig? Will it rise in there? Or, do I have to do a same-day rise with the sourdough starter? Any tips/info would be greatly appreciated.

[Pete-zza]

abilak,

Last month another member asked a similar question, to which I replied at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5453.msg46046.html#msg46046 (Reply 1). I believe Reply 151 referenced in the above thread (the Lehmann thread) comes closest to what you would like to do, but there are several other ways of using a natural starter or preferment with the basic Lehmann dough formulation, as is also noted in the above thread.

Forum member PizzaBrasil (Luis) has become a pro at making naturally leavened Lehmann doughs. So, if you read Luis' thread referenced in the above link, you should get a pretty good feel for his methods for incorporating natural starters/preferments into the basic Lehmann dough formulation. In his case, he prefers the room-temperature fermented Lehmann doughs over the cold fermented ones.

Peter

[abilak]

Good information in there, I may start with a room temp one for the first try.
I will take pics for sure.
Thanks.

[PizzaBrasil]

Abilak:

Good luck in your first pre-fermented dough deal.
Just a word of caution: I normally use a wood oven with temperatures over the 800°F and lively flames.
Working with lower temperatures could be interesting to add 2% of canola oil and a little quantity of sugar or honey to the dough.
All the other tips are ok.

Luis

[abilak]

First pic is my wild FL starter after 6 days or so.
I started with 1 TBS orange juice from my tree in the back yard combined with 1/2 TBS whole wheat flour and 1/2 TBS rye flour.
First the first 4 days I kept adding the same amounts every 24 hours.
After day 4, I dumped half the mixture and I switched to 1/4 RO water, and adding 1/4 cup unbleached white KA flour.
I think on day 6 I added 1/2 cup FL and 1/2 cup water so I would have enough start to mess around with.

Connected the paddle attachment:
I added the h20 and the starter to the bowl, then added flour 1 TBS at a time.
Once combined, I added the sugar, salt, then the oil.
Then I kneaded it for a minute or 2.
I then connected the C dough hook, and kneaded it for about 6-7 minutes more.
The final dough temp was 80 deg F.
Here is the formula I started with:

Total Formula:
Flour (100%):  420.01 g  |  14.82 oz | 0.93 lbs
Water (65%):  273.01 g  |  9.63 oz | 0.6 lbs
Salt (1.5%):  6.3 g | 0.22 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.31 tsp | 0.44 tbsp
Oil (1.5%):  6.3 g | 0.22 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.4 tsp | 0.47 tbsp
Sugar (.95%):  3.99 g | 0.14 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1 tsp | 0.33 tbsp
Total (168.95%): 709.61 g | 25.03 oz | 1.56 lbs | TF = 0.0813
Single Ball: 354.8 g | 12.52 oz | 0.78 lbs

Preferment:
Flour:  29.4 g | 1.04 oz | 0.06 lbs
Water:  54.6 g | 1.93 oz | 0.12 lbs
Total:  84 g | 2.96 oz | 0.19 lbs

Final Dough:
Flour:  390.61 g | 13.78 oz | 0.86 lbs
Water:  218.41 g | 7.7 oz | 0.48 lbs
Salt:  6.3 g | 0.22 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.31 tsp | 0.44 tbsp
Preferment:  84 g | 2.96 oz | 0.19 lbs
Oil:  6.3 g | 0.22 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.4 tsp | 0.47 tbsp
Sugar:  3.99 g | 0.14 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1 tsp | 0.33 tbsp
Total:  709.61 g | 25.03 oz | 1.56 lbs  | TF = 0.0813

I kinda guessed of my water ratio in the preferment, based on weight... because I used measuring cups rather than a scale. So I had to look up the average weight of fl and the weight of water to come up with the ratio. Next time I will weigh everything before I start.
The reason I used .0813 as the TF, is because normally I use 3 cups, or about 390g of flour total for my 2 14" doughs. So I wanted to keep the flour amount the same in the recipe. I noticed that I had to add about 2 more TBS of flour while kneading with the dough hook to get a pretty "wet" dough. I could pick it up afterwards, but it could easily stick to your fingers if not handled carefully.

The next pic is the doughball.
The pic after is the doughball after sitting at my room temp, 74 deg, for 7 hours.

I then put it in the frig and I am going to let it sit for 36 hours in there, unit I am ready to make pizza on Sat. night.
I will take pics of the pie too.

My oven will only go to 550F, maybe a little higher if I kick the broiler on once it is done heating up. It's an old POS gas oven, I may try to do the cleaning mode trick to just get it up to 650-700. We'll see if it's easy to do on my oven.

[abatardi]

I thought this was a magic trick at first... watch it go from preferment to dough ball and back to preferment before your eyes! 

Looks like it is over-risen already.. it's come all the way up and started to sag back down.. anxious to see how it turns out.

- aba

[abilak]

Yeah, it's definitely ready.
I wanted to see if it would actually work, and left it out overnight for 7 hours.
Next time, it's going right in the frig for a few days.
It will probably be a little wet, but I'm sure I can get a pizza out of it tomorrow night.

I also made a bread with the same starter:
the ratio was 1 cup of starter to 1.5 cups flour, no extra water.
pinch of sugar, pinch of salt, she was ready to go in no time.

doubled after 1 hour in my garage, where the temp is about 80-84 deg.
punched down and shaped loaf
let rise for another hour or so out there.
put in oven pre-heated to 375, right on the pizza stone.
cooked for 35 mins, to internal center temp of 205 deg.
I am right at sea level on the beach, so this is the temp I usually shoot for.

Pics of pizza coming soon.

[Pete-zza]

abilak,

Maybe you already noticed but you should be able to use the preferment dough calculating tool for making bread dough also. In fact, you are more likely to find bread dough recipes recited with baker's percents than pizza dough recipes. With the tool, you would of course use the dough weight method, not the thickness factor approach. Most bread dough recipes call for much higher amounts of preferments, with over 40% being common.

Peter

[abilak]

Thanks Pete, the tool is fantastic.

[sourdough girl]

abilak,

I have a question:  it appears that you slash your dough at the beginning of the final rise... whereas I have always slashed mine just before it goes into the oven, to help give the bread room to grow during the oven spring.  Is there a reason you slash so early that might give me some insight?  Sure would love to see a crumb view with your next loaf!  Slice us off a hunk, wouldja??

BTW, the bread in my avatar is from my own wild yeast, which has been performing quite well, so far!

~sd

[Pete-zza]

sourdough girl,

I'll be interested in abilak's answer also, but in the meantime you may want to take a look at page 8 of the San Francisco Baking Institute Summer 2007 newsletter at http://www.sfbi.com/FileUpload/files/SFBINewsSUM07.pdf, under the section entitled "How to score?"

Peter

[sourdough girl]

Thanks, Peter!

That was an interesting read... I have been signed up for their newsletter for a while now, but have certainly not read through everything available yet...  I'd have to give up some time on pizzamaking.com to do that!   

Of course, the most notable quote is this one:  "Weak dough, such as heavy rye, should be cut after shaping. Its gluten structure is so fragile that it might collapse if cut after the final proof. Scoring these types of dough after shaping also brings a nicer definition to the cuts after baking. Because of its weaker oven kick, denser dough will keep the cut definition well."  I guess I've always slashed at the end of the final rise because I have always worked with stronger doughs, having not yet attempted a 100% rye loaf or similar.

~sd

[abilak]

There is no real reason why I slash it before the final rise.... I have always done this with french breads and other stick breads and loafs.. I have also slashed them right before they go in too.. I guess I just like the way it looks better... the slashes seem to get wider.
Anyway, here is pics of the first pizza I made with the wild starter, as well as a cross angle pic of the loaf.
There is also another pic of my oven setup that was used to cook both the pizza and the bread.

[abilak]

Something interesting... I used the same percentage (of starter), and same recipe, to make my next dough... This time, I put it right in the frig. This was 36 hours ago and it still hasn't risen at all. Should I have left it out for an hour or 2 before placing in the frig? My last dough over-rose in 7 hours at 74 deg.

[sourdough girl]

abilak,

I can't answer your question, although I know the subject has been discussed on these boards before.  I'm sure Pete-zza can give you the chapter and verse on that!

I just wanted to say, thanks for the bread pic... that's a mighty nice lookin' crumb there!  In my reading on bread baking, I have "learned" that you should slash the bread at the end of the final rise because to not do so would cause the bread to split on the sides during the burst of oven spring.  That, obviously, did not happen with your loaf, so maybe the timing of the slash is not as important as making sure you DO slash sometime in the final rise before the oven.  Thanks for the photos... and a GREAT looking pizza, BTW!!  It's about time for pizza again in this house...  don't want to burn DH out on pizza with all my experiments!

~sd

[Pete-zza]

abilak,

Of all the methods I have tried using a natural starter/preferment, I would say that the toughest one to make work is to go directly to the refrigerator after making the dough. Jeff Varasano’s work is often cited as a cold fermentation model because the dough can be held in the refrigerator for several days (e.g., up to 6 days), but it is really a combination of room temperature fermentation and cold fermentation. Jeff uses several room-temperature rest periods before refrigerating the dough. My recollection is that the multiple rest periods are over an hour in total duration. These rest periods are really fermentation periods (since all of the ingredients, including the starter/preferment and any commercial yeast, are combined at the outset), not classic autolyse rest periods in which only the flour and water are combined and allowed to rest. Any room-temperature rest period in which the leavening agent is at work will allow the dough to warm up and get a head start on fermentation before it is refrigerated. The enzymes in the dough will work during the cold fermentation but the activity of the yeast will be reduced.

Another effective method is the one that Bill/SFNM has described in which a combination of room temperature fermentation (several hours), cold fermentation (maybe a day or more), and a final warm-up period (several hours) is used. It may be that Bill is using a different regimen these days, but my recollection is that he had great success with the above combination. Not too long ago, I used the same combination (5 hours room temperature, 66 hours of cold fermentation, and 5 hours room temperature) to make one of the De Lorenzo clone doughs at the Philly/Trenton-Area Tomato Pie thread.

When my fermentation temperature is too low, especialy below the optimum fermentation temperature of 18-20 degrees C, the dough (naturally leavened) takes forever to rise. That is one of the reasons why I bought a MR-138 ThermoKool unit. It is something that I think anyone who plans to make naturally leavened doughs with any regularity should consider. Otherwise, you are at the mercy of your ambient temperatures (room temperature or refrigerator temperatures), which can vary quite widely, especially room temperatures which are subject to wide seasonal variations. You still will have issues with the startesr used and their activity levels, but you at least take a lot of temperature issues out of the equation.

In your case, it is possible that the dough has risen but it has not been visually discernible, especially if it has flattened and slumped into a disk-shaped mass. What you may want to do is to let the dough warm up for several hours after it has been taken out of the refrigerator. If the dough visibly rises, I think you should be OK.

For some additional commentary on this subject, you may want to take a look at this recent thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5512.msg46618.html#msg46618.

Peter

[abilak]

Thanks for the advice Pete. I do plan on letting it sit at room temp for a few hours before cooking. I will take a before and after rise pic, as well as pics of the pie.