Remember how in childhood, in the morning, grandmothers started a huge pan with dough, then it rose for a couple of hours in a warm place near the stove, then they baked pies from it with baking sheets? Those were wonderful times! And the pies smelled so delicious, and we ate them with pleasure, because we only ate, and did not start the dough, ...

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Remember the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood", where the mother sent her daughter with pies to the sick grandmother? But I wonder what kind of pies she gave her, the fairy tale is silent about this. Maybe...

To start: Fermentation (fermentation)
Fermentation is what happens when yeast comes into contact with flour and water. Yeast absorbs sugar from starch. Bubbles that we see during fermentation. come from carbon dioxide, which releases starch. It is carbon dioxide that creates the leaven and gives the dough its unique structure. Yeast is a living, single-celled plant that eats sugar, while releasing carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol as it grows and reproduces. Flour, on the other hand, belongs to carbohydrates - its molecules consist of hundreds of sugar molecules. When yeast, water and flour are mixed, the enzymes in the flour break down carbohydrates into sugars. Yeast eat sugar, grow and multiply. and the released gas and alcohol are held together by proteins formed in the process of kneading flour and water. This causes the test to rise. Alcohol gives bread its smell and taste. Both alcohol and gas evaporate during baking.
The taste of bread also appears under the action of bacteria in the atmosphere. These bacteria compete with yeast for sugar. They give the bread the taste of acetic and lactic acid.
plays an important role in fermentation temperature factor. The yeast becomes active between 33 and 130 F. The fermentation process itself also produces heat. When fermentation occurs at very high temperatures (above 90 F), the bread takes on an unpleasant taste. Cooled yeast goes dormant and releases more alcohol. This slow activity allows the bacteria to feed on sugar, grow, and produce acetic acid. Temperatures between 40 and 55 F are ideal for the formation of acetic acid. Temperatures from 55 to 90 are responsible for the formation of lactic acid. Acetic acid gives bread a much more sour taste than lactic acid. It also strengthens the structure of the dough, but in too large quantities leads to the opposite effect. This is why many bakers prefer slower cold proofing.
proofing time- Another important factor that decides both the taste and color of bread. If the dough ferments too long, the yeast and bacteria use up all the sugar in the flour and the bread will have a pale crust and an uninteresting taste. For taste and color, sugar residues in the dough are simply necessary.
Longer fermentation allows the dough to further release gluten, adds depth and complexity to the flavor with longer lasting coverage, and ultimately increases bread shelf life. It also makes it possible to put in less yeast, which in turn allows the wheat flavor to come through. In short, the longer the fermentation, the less yeast we need.
Too much sourdough makes the bread too sour and weakens the gluten structure. However, almost all types of bread will only benefit if sourdough is added to them, because sourdough allows the potential taste of this bread to manifest itself to the maximum.
When you put your starter in the refrigerator, it takes several hours for it to cool down to 50 F. However, it will never be as cold as your refrigerator, p.h. fermentation, even slow, produces heat. It is important to know that when you use a kneading tool like a stand or hand mixer, the temperature of the dough increases by 1-3 F for every minute of kneading. Therefore, it is so important not to get carried away and not kill the dough. You can add starter that has been stored in the refrigerator to compensate for the energy created by the mixer. Therefore, many bakers add thick sourdough (bigu, or old dough) to already kneaded dough. They estimate that this starter has already had 3-5 minutes of kneading and if it is added to the dough at the beginning, the dough may overheat.
Most sourdough starters use commercial yeast (as opposed to wild yeast). The exception is the so-called sourdough or levain, i.e. in our opinion, homemade sourdough. There are several types of sourdough: barm, biga, chef, desem, levain, madre bianca, mother, pâte fermentée, poolish, sponge, starter or sourdough starter.

The advantages of the technology of long-term fermentation of test semi-finished products are based on the fact that the longer the flour components swell and the enzymes act, the more the taste and aroma of baked bread develop. It is simply impossible to increase the duration of fermentation, since the semi-finished product under normal conditions reaches the required degree of maturation in a certain time. An increase in the duration of each stage can be achieved by reducing the temperature regimes.

Decades ago, refrigeration technology for bakeries assumed that the dough piece containing yeast cells should be cooled as quickly as possible to a temperature below the dew point. To do this, the units used high-performance fans and bulky evaporators. Blowing blanks with frosty air led to a noticeable increase in energy consumption and airing of the semi-finished product. Shock freezing reduced the volumetric yield of products by 10–15% and required appropriate defrosting.

The experience of recent years shows that instead of shock freezing, it is promising to control the temperature of the semi-finished product at all stages, from the preparation of dough to proofing.

Proofing at low temperatures is considered the most convenient, when the molded blanks are placed in a refrigeration or climatic chamber. In this case, it is possible to use various temperature regimes providing, for example:

• slowing down the fermentation of the dough by lowering the ambient temperature to 3-5 ° C for a period of 8-12 hours;
• lowering the temperature to “freezing” the workpieces, followed by a gradual rise in temperature;
• change from normal fermentation temperature to sub-zero temperatures, then heating to 14°C for proofing, followed by an increase to normal values ​​in the final stage before baking.

The effect of new technologies of cold dough preparation depends on the characteristics of the bakery, the range of products produced, logistics conditions, etc. However, practice in all cases has shown that in addition to a significant improvement in product quality, there is also significant energy savings (up to 45%). In particular, in classical shock freezing installations, the speed of air flows is 15–20 m/s, and in new climatic installations it does not exceed 2–3 m/s, which significantly reduces energy consumption and drying of workpieces.

As an example, we can consider the technology of cold dough preparation for the classic recipe for wheat flour buns. For cold dough making, a long kneading at low speeds of the kneading body is recommended. At the same time, water penetrates better into protein structures, and the amount of moisture on the surface of the dough decreases. It also helps keep the product fresh. It is recommended to reduce the amount of yeast to 1.5–2%, and add salt at the final stage of kneading.

The presence of an installation for the production of flake ice allows you to provide the desired temperature of the dough. The temperature of the dough at the end of the batch should be 23-25 ​​°C. Increasing the temperature of the batch above 26 °C leads to an increase in enzyme activity. At temperatures below 22 ° C, the dough remains immature, develops too slowly.

At the end of fermentation in bowls or continuous action apparatus, after punching and resting for 10-15 minutes, the semi-finished product is cut, and the molded blanks are laid out in special plastic trays. A stack of trays is sent to the chamber for removal of warm air for 20 minutes, and the workpieces are cooled to a temperature of 5 °C. Blanks can be stored at low positive temperature range up to 36 hours. Under such a temperature regime, yeast activity is minimized, which increases the time for the manifestation of the action of enzymes that increase the aromatic and taste characteristics of the product.

The degree of fermentation and the temperature of all dough pieces by the beginning of a long cold proofing should be the same. For this, buffer cooling chambers or installations are used to remove warm air from stacks of pallets with blanks. Since air is sucked out of the chamber under pressure, cooling is faster and more efficient. When comparing the principles of traditional cooling and air extraction, the latter turns out to be more gentle on dough pieces, since a much smaller volume of air is set in motion.

When cold air is supplied, the central part of the pallets with dough pieces gets cooled later than the semi-finished product at the edges. When extracting warm air, cooling of all blanks occurs evenly without airing the semi-finished product. This also ensures that all workpieces are at the same temperature. After cooling, the dough pieces can be sent to refrigerated chambers for final proofing, cold storage or delivery to retail outlets. When transporting chilled dough pieces up to 2-3 hours (at a temperature not exceeding 20 ° C), additional cooling or the use of refrigerators is not required.

Technologies cool down from Wachtel-Stamm, Aroma Cooler from WP, Smartproof from Miwe use this method of extracting warm air through specially tuned fans. The temperature inside the blanks is controlled by thermometers, which guarantees uniform cooling of all blanks. Such technologies are equally applicable for both large and small batches of semi-finished products.

Technology Patt Swiss company KolbKalte is based on the principle of ensuring exactly the same temperature on the surface and inside the dough piece. This technology is recommended to stabilize the structure of non-proofed dough pieces, which are sent to cold storage without a proofing phase. The cooling of the semi-finished product is carried out very gently. The temperature of the dough pieces is gradually reduced from 20 to -5 °C, which leads to a slow process of maturation of the semi-finished product. The relative humidity in the chamber is almost 100%.

Before baking, blanks can be stored for 24 hours or more. In the future, they can be delivered to points of sale or baked in batches at the main production. This technology ensures the natural and intensive development of the taste and aroma properties of the product. The energy consumption in this case is much lower than in blast freezers.

Ensuring accurate characterization of the air humidity in the chamber is of great importance. In systems of different manufacturers, humidification of the air in the chamber is carried out in different ways, but the general principle is that the smaller the drops of water vapor, the better the atmosphere in the chamber. Typically, water vapor consists of moisture particles ranging in size from 100 to 150 microns, which fall at a speed of about 100 cm/s. In modern air conditioning systems, devices are used to create water vapor, the droplet size of which is only 1 micron. Such drops fall much more slowly - at a speed of 1 cm / s. In this case, a light fog “hangs” in the climatic chamber, which envelops the cooled semi-finished products in storage or slow ripening mode.

The smallest drops of water vapor spread evenly throughout the entire volume of the chamber and constantly in time, which contributes to the optimal flow of biochemical and microbiological processes, protects the workpiece from winding and shrinkage. A very fine mist of water can be obtained by using special high pressure nozzles. Due to the use of reverse osmosis and ultraviolet irradiation in the water preparation system, a high degree of purity and hygiene of the semi-finished product is achieved, the absence of calcium deposits in the spray system.

Technology cool rising from Wachtel is designed for controlled proofing of workpieces during their cooling. Dough pieces at a temperature of 20 °C are loaded into a climatic chamber and cooled to 3 °C within 6 hours. At this temperature, the blanks can be stored for up to 48 hours. After a long cold storage, in which fermentation processes take place slowly, the blanks can be immediately served for baking. The advantage of the climate control system of this company is that the temperature regimes can be set a week ahead, taking into account the specific production program of the enterprise.

Miwe's automatic climate chambers GVA can also be programmed in advance to ensure that the semi-finished product is loaded into the oven at a pre-planned moment. If necessary, you can automatically increase the temperature in the chamber and carry out the final proofing phase at 20-30 °C.

KOMA (Netherlands) manufactures fully automatic climatic chambers CDS SunRiser for long-term dough preparation technologies. The microprocessor control of these chambers allows precise control and regulation of the temperature and relative humidity of the air, as well as the degree of its circulation in the chamber. The temperature ranges of this unit make it possible to implement various options for conditioning test semi-finished products to slow down and interrupt fermentation, low-temperature storage, and shock freezing of finished products.

The use of cold in the technological processes of baking requires deep knowledge, highly qualified personnel and modern equipment. The combination of low temperature and the duration of the individual stages of the technological cycle must be chosen and implemented very carefully, only possible with high quality technology. European machine builders have developed and implemented refrigeration and climatic chambers with control systems that provide programmable cooling and heating over a wide temperature range.

Experts note that the main advantages of long-term dough preparation through the use of cold are as follows:

• significant improvement in the taste and aroma of baked products;
• improvement of the structure of the crumb and the color of the crust;
• the ability to store the spaced dough pieces for many hours without loss of quality;
• convenient delivery of test pieces to points of sale without special air-conditioned transport at any time of the day;
• reduction (by about 20%) of the required amount of yeast and improvers.

I would like to write about .... I wanted to say "hack", but it would not be correct. Regarding how and when we can reduce or vice versa increase the stages of making sourdough bread, where we can simplify without prejudice, and which points should be left unchanged. There are tons of recipes for sourdough and sourdough bread on the net, and some even directly contradict each other, however, all this is a real experience that people share and say: look, this is how it works too. However, not every experience is worth adopting.

Why?

Why, when working with the test, we do it this way, and not otherwise? Let me remind you that we “build” bread dough on sourdough in stages, and it is always dough on sourdough, and then dough kneading, its subsequent fermentation, cutting, preliminary proofing (when we round the dough pieces and let them rest before shaping) molding, final proofing , incisions if necessary, and baking with steam. It may seem like too much fuss, but we want to bake delicious beautiful bread, to achieve the best result, so I personally try not to skip anything that needs to be done with the dough. All this is called “technology”, “method”, but in fact there is a method that arose for a reason, but based on the physical and chemical properties of the components and their ability to influence each other: flour, water, yeast / sourdough, salt, sugar , oils and other additives.

Understanding the processes that occur with the test, imagining what is what for and what happens at each stage, if necessary, you can simplify the work with minimal losses. Let's start in order.

1) Opara on sourdough.

I usually put it on overnight so I can get to work in the morning, and I try to use it when it is not fully ripe, swollen, and lush, but not overripe and not sour much (you can read about this method in the article about). What to do if you can’t knead the dough right now? You can put the refrigerator in the dough and calmly transgress to the test when there is an opportunity. It can stand in the refrigerator for several hours, depending on the temperature and degree of maturity, this will be enough for you to finish things, finalize the work, feed, put the children to bed and, finally, do what you love))

2) Autolysis.

I got into the habit of kneading with autolysis, this is especially true for whole-grain dough, which needs time for bran germs to swell in addition to protein and gluten to begin to form. I mix the sourdough, water and flour in the dough mixer, cover it so that the dough does not dry out, and leave it for 20 minutes. Note that white flour dough without the presence of sourdough can rest for 40 minutes, or even an hour, sourdough dough needs much less time, because lactic and other acids present in the sourdough contribute to the rapid swelling of the protein. White flour dough, in general, can be kneaded without autolysis, but with whole grains it is better not to neglect. But what if you do not have time to come to the test after 20 minutes of autolysis? If you delay for 10-15 minutes - it's okay, but if more, take a second and put the dough in the refrigerator. The low temperature will slow down the enzymes that break down the gluten, and you can move on to kneading when the opportunity arises. But if you assume in advance that you will not be able to approach the dough in due time, mixing it, add salt. It will somewhat slow down the swelling of the protein, but it will also slow down the enzymes. And in the fridge! And if you put the dough in the refrigerator, keep in mind that it will ferment slowly until it warms up.

3) Kneading.

I don’t even know what to say here, if you knead with your hands, then you are just talking about machine and manual kneading. If you are too lazy to knead - knead with folding, periodic short approaches to the dough or during active kneading, let the dough rest for 5 minutes to relax the gluten, this is a very good way. And here it is important to remember that it is better to under-knead than to knead, maybe the bread will turn out not so magnificent, but tasty - for sure. By the way, you can read about mixing and why bread turns out to be tasteless because of it in this article.

4) Introduction of additives and oils.

You can throw in seeds, raisins and nuts at the beginning of the kneading, but then these additives will make it difficult for the dough to develop gluten, because they will tear it during kneading. Even bread machines are designed to make all kinds of additives towards the end of the batch, when the dough is already formed. Likewise with oil.

5) Fermentation and proofing.

With fermentation, there are many options. Sourdough dough is convenient because it ferments for a long time and while it ferments, you can do a lot of things and even take a walk or go to the store with your children. To speed up the process, you can put it in a warmer place and if you have Proofer Brod&Taylor, this is very simple to do, the temperature is set there and is stably maintained until you change it. If you want to increase the fermentation time, the refrigerator will help you, the dough can stand there for a long time, up to 8 hours, and grow slowly. Likewise with the final proofing. If you bake several loaves in turn, while one is baking, the second, so as not to stand still, can be hidden in the refrigerator and so hold out until baking.

6) Preliminary proofing.

You can skip this stage, but in order to qualitatively form the workpiece, it is better to do it. Why is it needed at all? You divide the dough into pieces to make two or more loaves, round up, and let the dough rest a bit. On the one hand, why not immediately form and put the dough in? Pre-proofing will allow you to mold better. By rounding the pieces, you already give them the correct shape, and by allowing the gluten to relax on the rest, you get the opportunity to mold it tighter, while maintaining the internal structure of the dough and the bubbles in it. Bread formed in this way holds its shape better during proofing and baking and is more fluffy and rounded. Tense gluten can tear during tension, and the dough can resist (try to separate the dough and roll it out right after the active kneading, it will resist and shrink), and if you let the gluten relax a little, you can do whatever is good with it. Similarly and relatively, if you do not divide the dough, bake one loaf of them all.

7) The only thing you can't cheat with is baking and moisturizing.

The baking temperature must be high enough. If you initially choose a low or insufficiently heated oven, the workpiece will float and will not be very lush, if you overcook, the bread will burn and the crumb will be too dry. With steam at the beginning of baking, it is similar, if there is too much moisture and moistening is too long (longer than 15 minutes), the cuts will not open and will be equal to the crust, and the crust will turn out smooth and shiny.

Recently, I happened to visit a local bakery, where they recently started baking sourdough bread. Before I tell you how they do it, I will say that their bread is really delicious. So, bakers, in order to optimize production, skip the fermentation process before baking, knead the dough, immediately form it and put it on proofing.

On the one hand, how to wander after kneading, fold in an envelope, strengthen gluten, dance with a tambourine? And so, production costs. On the one hand, it somehow turns out wrong, but there is a big difference between what professional bakers do by skipping fermentation and us, amateur novice bakers. They know and understand what and why they do and have excellent bread as a result, and practice, as you know, is the criterion of truth. But if we start doing whatever we like, then we will never learn how to bake good bread and work freely with different bread dough, because without knowing the basics, there will be no sense in such work.

To be honest, I immediately tried to repeat their experience and also skip the fermentation process, but in the end it turned out badly. I didn’t wait for the bread to fit as it should (but at that time it seemed to me that it fit well)), I baked it, it turned out, in general, tasty, but flat, and this “flat” applies to both the taste and the appearance of the bread . In addition, the dough behaved somewhat differently during molding, it was too pliable and inelastic.

In the next article, since I have the opportunity to shoot in a bakery, I will tell you how professional bread production works, what equipment is used in a bakery and compare with what we can do at home. And, of course, I will tell you in more detail how local bakers got used to baking sourdough bread without fermenting it after kneading.

The background to this bread was several things at once: the desire to bake large-pored puffed bread without flour from whole grain flour and my long-term communication with Lyudmila, known to many bloggers-breadmakers mariana_aga She is a true professional! It was she who gave me the idea of ​​baking bread, the technology of which uses long-term autolysis. The embodiment of the idea, as always, was found in Sergey's journal registerrr .


As Sergey himself writes on his blog:
"I want the bread dough to contain only flour, water, salt and yeast. After all, they are almost the minimum that is needed for bread. "Almost" - because bread can be baked without salt and without yeast, but without flour and water - no way!
But I want not simple bread, but refined, beautiful, fragrant, tasty, unusual, at least! And therefore, I will make the dough very wet, so that at first glance, especially for a beginner, it is not suitable for baking at all, because it is not clear how to knead it.
To create a rich taste and aroma, I will use a long fermentation in various temperature conditions. This is going to be interesting!"
It will really be interesting!

So, I will bake hearth wheat bread with the addition of whole grain flour. For this bread, the technology of long-term fermentation at various temperatures was chosen. To begin with, I added 50% whole-grain of the total mass of flour, in the future I will try to bring this percentage to 100. As Lyudmila says, you can bake wonderful bread from any flour, you just need to understand the flour, its properties and its behavior in the dough. So far, this is still difficult for me: there is a lot of new information in my head that has not yet settled down on the shelves. But everything comes with experience!
Ingredients:
Wheat flour 1 grade - 250 grams.
Whole wheat flour - 250 grams.
Dry yeast - 1 gram.
Salt - 10 grams.
Water 450 ml.
Cooking:
Stage 1- test kneading. It also takes place in two stages: first, the dough is kneaded with part of the water (370 ml out of 450) and without salt. HP "Dumplings" mode (this is a kneading mode for 20 minutes). Then the dough rests for an hour. During this time, flour proteins absorb water, swell and begin to form gluten. After resting, the remaining water and all the salt according to the recipe are added. Kneading in the "Dumplings" mode. This step by step addition of water is called double hydration. At the end of the kneading, leave the dough in a closed HP for another 1 hour.
Next execute Stage 2- the stage of long fermentation, as Sergey describes:
Place the cold fermentation dough in the refrigerator for:
- 12 hours at 12-14C;
- 24 hours at 5-6C;
- 35-48 hours at 4C.
Warm the dough in the refrigerator at room temperature for 1-1.5 hours. The dough should have obvious visual signs of being stale:
- be bubbly;
- increased in volume by two or three times;
- tender, gelatinous.
And finally Stage 3- proofing and baking.
Dump the dough onto a board dusted with flour, fold into four envelopes, cover and let rest for 15-20 minutes.
Next, form the bread blank with movements that tighten the gluten structure into a lump.
Place the blank on a sheet of baking paper for proofing. It is necessary to provide lateral support in any way possible.
Proofing - 1.5-2 hours at room temperature.
Sprinkle the bread with flour before baking.
Bake 50-60 minutes. The first 15 minutes - with steam humidification at T=250C. The rest of the time - at 200C. Lower the temperature if the crust burns.
Let the bread cool on a wire rack for an hour before serving.

The bread did not wait to cool completely on the wire rack: it was cut while still warm. What a crispy crust! What porosity and most importantly - what flavor! And this is in bread, in which there is not a single ingredient other than water, yeast and flour! And all because in the process of long-term fermentation, not only yeast fungi multiply in the dough, but also another microflora, which, together with yeast (which release alcohol during fermentation), gives a rich aromatic range. The process of long autolysis itself has a lot of positive aspects for dough from all types of wheat flour. Details about autolysis are written by Lyudmila