The Fresh Loaf

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Bulk fermentation experiment

jacob55's picture
jacob55

Bulk fermentation experiment

I wanted to see how bulk fermentation affects bread, so I made a standard hand mixed dough,

68% hydration, 2% salt, 1% Fleishman's active dry yeast

every 45 minutes I would take a piece out and proof it for 45 minutes and bake at 450 for 20 minutes. I did it 9 times, about 7 hours in total.

The result is in the picture, left is the least amount of bulk ferment and the right is the most amount.

Overall the size of the boules didnt change much. The crumb structure doesn't visibly look that much different, but to the right the holes were a little bit bigger. The one at the left tastes chewier and denser. I actually spit it out each time, it's that bad. The ones to the right are gradually getting better in taste. at 3 hours bulk ferment (bread 5), it smells noticeably more fermented.

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

It would be interesting to repeat this with sourdough. 

jacob55's picture
jacob55

I might want to do another where I test proof times, yeast amounts, hydration amounts. I would need to create another sourdough if I was to test anything about that since I don't have one anymore.

BernardH's picture
BernardH

By co-incidence as I read this I'm part way through the bulk ferment of a batch of Hamelman's hand mixed white bread. He uses a bulk ferment of three and a half hours, and the flavour of this bread is really good!

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

If possible, you could edit your post and delete those images. Then replace them with the same images but this time set the width in the dialog box tp 625. The height will auto-adjust. A larger image would portray more visual data.

Thanks for posting...
Danny

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo
jacob55's picture
jacob55

if you right click and select "show image in a new tab" it might show a bit bigger.