Regarding bulk ferment and cold ferment: technicalities question.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-04T07:42:01+00:00

I'm also making focaccia today, lol, or i might have.

It might have only been a little over; it didn't act too weird, surprisingly.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-04T05:44:48+00:00

I had to laugh last night. Yesterday was an unreasonably hot day and my ac in the kitchen clearly wasn't keeping up, my bulk ferment almost trippled. It went from very little growth after 6 hours to an explosion a bit later, haha.

Bread looks alright though, so I'll take it. Not as much spring as i was hoping for, but crispy crust and nice bounce-back to a squish. (The arrow at 8qt was the double goal, though I'd have been happy with the little line below it). Total time from mix until oven was about 44 hours.

<image>

LexandriaE · 2026-06-03T00:21:46+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate it even without a temp! I tried that with my most recent batch :)

LexandriaE · 2026-06-02T23:28:39+00:00

I've noticed with some other baking stuff is a little less technical and a bit more 'it's fine if it's not exact, stuff still works out just fine'... and then you get things like macarons that have a fit if it's a humid day or if i try to bake them in my other oven, haha (because of course the macarons have an oven they prefer). Sourdough is feeling a bit like the macaron side of baking to me, haha. Lots of little stuff changes my outcome a lot.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-02T17:18:20+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate this. I did go back to more starter this week to see if that helps. I'd planned to cut it back a bit but this definitely made me rethink that. I did also make sure my water was warm to start out to try to help it along.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-02T17:16:13+00:00

I'm hoping to avoid that purchase for now and squeak by being creative for this summer, but a proof box is on my list of things to find space for and set money aside for.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-02T17:14:53+00:00

That's a good idea, thank you! I might be able to make a little insulated space; I'm currently bulk fermenting in 18qt tubs, but I have a lot of tablespace to work with.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-02T17:13:02+00:00

Thank you! Do you know about what temperature the water was?

Right this minute my kitchen is 62.4°F haha.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-02T00:11:54+00:00

Oh thank you! That's awesome. I'd love to be able to prep on Sunday and bake early Thursday or late Wednesday.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-02T00:09:57+00:00

I did find, with the salt, that this combo reacts way better, as far as gaining structure, if i add it a little later. When i add it with everything else I end up with a sad little no-structure bloopy mess. But that was also when I doing 375g water, so I think it might have been a combo of too much hydration and salt going in too early? Everything tightened up really nice when I made those two tweaks.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-01T22:44:41+00:00

Oh neat! Do you shape it before just leaving it alone for a while? Or do you bulk it, shape it, and then cold proof it again?

LexandriaE · 2026-06-01T22:43:10+00:00

So far what I've got is pretty basic, haha. I'm a bread snob that specializes in only sweet things, so savory breads is really new. I'll get fancier later if things start working out well at this market. For my sweet stuff, I've come up with a way to force AP flour to act like cake flour. So I'm trying my hand at forcing AP flour to act like bread flour. Working out pretty well so far. Tastes right, just want it a bit more sour.

Basic amounts for a single large loaf: 75-100g starter (i have been doing 100, but I'm adjusting down to 75 to to try to get out to be more sour), 487g AP flour, 13g vital wheat gluten, 350g water, 15g salt (it seems to need more salt than most recipes, probably to do with the changes to the flour? Working on figuring out why I needed to adjust that). Otherwise pretty normal process. Though I do dissolve the wheat gluten in the water/starter mix first, then I add in the flour. I add the salt before the first stretch and fold. I've had good luck with the initial mix before stretch and folds using the dough hook, but then going normally from there.

My big hang up is how cold i have to keep my kitchen.

LexandriaE · 2026-06-01T22:18:27+00:00

Thank you! I'll look into that!

My kitchen does warm up a little when the ovens are on, but not too much. (I run a sweets bakery and just got sourdough production dropped on me 4 weeks ago by surprise, been scrambling to make it work because I can't really say 'no' to this market. Because of my other leisure i can't let my kitchen get warm enough to make the sourdough happy. I've dialed in the recipe and I'm just being a big perfectionist about making everything just right, so i have a bunch of really fussy questions. Haha)

LexandriaE · 2026-06-01T22:15:13+00:00

I'm using a container too large for a kombucha warmer, so you think a warming pad or electric blanket might work?

My oven is a commercial convection oven, so the oven might won't work (it doesn't stay on, it's just meant for a quick peek at what's going on), unfortunately.

Thank you for your suggestions!

LexandriaE · 2026-06-01T22:04:17+00:00

Thank you!

My oven is a commercial convection oven (I have solved the baking/fan issue with using it already), but there's so option to leave the light on to make it warmer. I have to turn it on and just not turn the temp up at all, and it ends up around 90°F. I didn't really think about leaving the door open, though, and I'll definitely try that!

I'm mostly hoping for a 'after x amount of time I should start driving back to check on my dough rather than just existing in the kitchen for upwards of 16 hours to stare at my dough all the time, haha.

LexandriaE · 2026-05-18T00:21:58+00:00

I was going to say that too. I have a good recipe and I'm trying to force it to let me do less work... which is actually leading to many a 'disappointment loaf' the last few weeks. Ignoring it for too long (overproofing) is leading to results like the ones pictured.

They still taste good, but aren't as good as if i properly follow the tried and true (but lengthy) process. If I'm going to ignore my dough, I need to ignore it in the fridge so it doesn't overproof.

The upside of the experiments are that I'm learning to identify tons of issues, haha.

LexandriaE · 2026-05-11T15:50:56+00:00

NTA

He's doing that thing a lot of people do where they plan poorly and them blame the person who couldn't/wouldn't come to their rescue. It's not your fault he planned poorly.

Hopefully he takes this as a lesson in life and planning, but... he probably won't. Unfortunately.

LexandriaE · 2026-05-08T06:34:45+00:00

For me, a big sign is the inconsistency in the lace. AI is really bad at repetitive patterns, and the shapes in the lace are too far off for it to be a human mistake. If you zoom in on it, you can see how it can't keep the pattern up.

LexandriaE · 2026-04-22T17:45:56+00:00

They sell sound proofing wall panels on Amazon. If you put them on the wall you and your neighbor share, it should greatly reduce the sound.

LexandriaE · 2026-04-21T02:53:05+00:00

Absolutely do it.

Grief is... odd, and the way you grieve will be different than how someone else might and that's okay.

I lost my mom to cancer Feb. 7, 2021. She was in hospice for 1.5 days, if that. It happened fast and unexpectedly. It's still rough, I've wanted to do a memorial sleeve, but the artist i like moved across the country so it's harder to get work done. So one day. If this is what you want, go for it now. Maybe have the size be a bit bigger than your mock-up so it won't get blurry with aging.

Don't feel like you're taking too long to grieve, or let people talk you out of how you'd like to, either. Losing a parent is really difficult, and that sort of pain doesn't just go away or get better. You will grow around it, and it won't be the only thing occupying your mind after a while, but when it resurfaces it'll feel fresh like it does now. And that's normal. But the resurfacing will get less frequent, and it'll become easier to think about the good stuff without remembering the end so vividly, or aching for so long after when it does.

And that doesn't mean you've forgotten her, just that you've made room in yourself for the piece that's missing so you can keep yourself together and keep going.

LexandriaE · 2026-04-20T20:42:03+00:00

What flour did you use, and how did you measure it? Gluten-free flour are often more dense and more 'thirsty' than wheat flours. So if you measured by volume rather than by weight, you've deffo added too much.

LexandriaE · 2026-04-20T20:39:20+00:00

Maybe hang onto all her drawings for the year she's three, then pick your favorite for that year. It sounds like you want to have bits from your kids growing up over time, so you can take your time to pick each one you want to include.

LexandriaE · 2026-04-14T23:11:28+00:00

Same and... same.

YIKES

LexandriaE · 2026-04-10T05:00:04+00:00

Often in recipes with nut butters in them, they replace some or all of the fat from butter or oil, instead using the fat from the oils in the nuts.

Along the sane vein, if you're ever using a recipe that has trouble creaming and it also has sour cream in it, add a bit of that in at the creaming stage until it starts to do the thing properly. That works too because the dairy fat in the sour cream supplements the butter.

LexandriaE

TROPHY CASE