The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [20]
“Fermentation,” to a baker, means all the changes that go on in the dough from the time it is mixed until it is baked.
What is ripe dough?
Bakers say dough is ripe when it is at its most elastic, and can best hold the gas that the yeast is making. If you shape your loaves when the dough is ripe, they will rise their highest, have their best possible flavor, texture, and keeping quality, too.
It is good to learn to look for the characteristic signs: all the stickiness will be gone, and the dough will feel pleasantly dry to touch. You may not even need to use dusting flour to keep it from sticking to the board when you shape the loaf. If the supple dough is torn, the gluten strands will be thin and threadlike, where at the outset they were wet and thick.
When dough is first kneaded, the gluten is strong but not resilient. After some time passes, the dough becomes stretchy, and then elastic: ripe. Dough stays ripe for a shorter or longer period of time, depending mostly on the quality of the flour. If the period of ripeness passes, the gluten will soften and the dough rip easily. Bakers call such dough “old”; it makes grayish bread with poor flavor.
Why be so particular about where and how I proof the bread?
Why do all that work, and then blow it with carelessness at the end? Most kinds of bread do best if the proof temperature is the same or only a little higher than the dough temperature. If cold dough is proofed very warm, the loaf will develop a coarse, open grain on the top and sides but remain dense in the center. If very warm dough is chilled during its final rise, the crust area will be thick and tough, and there may be holes inside because the gluten ruptured.
If you overproof a loaf—and every baker does, sooner or later—don’t miss the chance to look closely at what happens. The dough rises up, then stops, and the arched curve of the top begins to flatten out. When you put the bread in the oven, it doesn’t rise up but stays the size it was or even settles a little, and the crust may blister. If you cut a slice, it will look open and coarse like a honeycomb at the top, dense at the bottom.
Underproofed bread will be dense and may have holes; if it rises in the oven, it is likely to have a big split along one side.
What is oven spring?
Probably not the first time you bake, but one lovely day soon, every step of your baking will go just right: your dough will be silky smooth; each rising will get exactly the time the dough needs; shaping and proofing, letter perfect. In the oven you get your bonus, the big gold star: about ten minutes into the baking the bread rises dramatically, increasing its volume by as much as a third of the original size. That is oven spring. If there were no such thing and you did everything right, your bread would still be great—no doubt about it—but when it happens, it is glorious.
Perfect technique will make any bread spring in the oven, but if you are keen on maximizing the event, choose the highest-gluten flour, use adequate sweetener, and include at least one tablespoon butter or two tablespoons liquid oil per loaf.
Whole-Grain Breads
Fitting Baking into Your Life
Breadmaking is an ancient art; they say we’ve been at it for at least 6000 years. I really believe it is in our very bones, for it seems to be something that we somehow remember rather than have to learn. Often, the first time people try to knead bread they act as if the dough is going to bite them; they tell you they’re not good at things like this, or that they’re afraid they’ll only waste the ingredients. Pretty soon, though, a kind of peacefulness sets in, the tension and awkwardness disappear—replaced, I think,