Hi guys, I'm making this focaccia recipe https://alexandracooks.com/2018/03/02/overnight-refrigerator-focaccia-best-focaccia/
It's been in the fridge for about 13 hours, it has more than doubled and I think it's still growing. The dough is 45.5f.
I made 2 batches, one I was going to cook today and the other on Tuesday to compare the effect the fermentation times have on the dough. Should I knock this dough down and put it back in the fridge or take it out and shape now?
by tiedarmour668
9 Comments
My understanding is cold ferment is best around 39 degrees F. Because my baguette was rising more I checked my fridge temp and it’s at 40. Not sure if that’s your issue. Fwiw I must have zero taste buds because when it’s happened I’ve not noticed a difference in the outcome. Disclosure: I’m pretty new at baguette baking.
Have you remembered to put in salt? If you have forgotten it, there is nothing to control yeast growth. So it will simply keep rising until it’s out of fuel.
Yeah you have your fridge warm even from a food safety perspective. It should be about 4c. Yeast goes dormant around 0.5-1c so even if you turn it down to 4c you will still get a slight rise, but minimal.
ummm… focaccia, anyway, your fridge is too warm
Forget the recipe – you are ready to enjoy some good bread, so just shape, proof and bake.
Why is your fridge at 45° that is way too warm for anything. The dough looks great though.
I use that recipe. I didnt notice much difference letting it go a full 3 days vs the 18hr. But my fridge is very cold lol
I’ve used that recipe many times and followed it to the letter in the past and it served as the basis of my current working focaccia recipe.
The tl;dr of what I’ve learned from playing around with it is this:
Baking the same day: recipe is fine as is.
Baking 12 to 24 hours later: reduce the yeast by 50%-60%
For quite a while I tried an overnight ferment with this recipe without adjusting the yeast and didn’t really see any improvement versus a same-day bake. Often it was even worse. Bad rise, no big bubbles, zero oven spring, etc.
Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in on the science of it, but adding less yeast seems to give better rise in a cold ferment when baking because it prevents the sugar in the dough from being consumed too quickly which exhausts the yeast and over-stretches the gluten network.
It seems counterintuitive, but it’s been working well for me. In your case, as others have said, your fridge might also be a bit too warm.
Thinking about it now, the range of 12 hours to three days given in the original recipe with no major adjustment for yeast kind of seems like a red flag.
Good luck and happy baking
Your fridge is fine, your dough is 45° because of the heat of fermentation. Active fermentation is an exothermic process, and in a deep thick bowl like that the middle of that dough was probably 80 degrees when it went into the fridge.