Overnight rise and enzymes...

[breadguy]

Hello... I have been baking whole wheat bread for my family for 25 years. For the past 2 years I have been baking and selling at the local Farmers Market. I make just a few kinds of bread and cinnamon rolls, cookies and bran muffins. I am trying to make a rye bread that is like sour dough, but with yeast. I am mixing a simple dough with no sugar or oil with minimum yeast 18 hours before making the bread. I tried it at first without the rye flour, adding it in the final mix. It was actually pretty good. Yesterday I added the rye with the whole wheat flour and let it go over night. After shaping the loaves today, the rise was not that good. The flavor was very good though. So, I was reading and saw something about the enzymes in rye making trouble for the whole wheat bread structure. I don't know anything about this. I was reading that wild yeast starter is acidic enough to control the enzymes.

Can anyone teach me about this? I use no white flour in my breads. I do add ascorbic acid to most my breads. Would adding more of this control the enzymes? I need to learn this. If anyone can help me here... please do!

Thank you,

Glenn

[slkinsey]

breadguy, I am not quite clear on your technique. What is it that you are fermenting for 18 hours? A sponge? Or the whole dough? Are you including some amount of "sourdough starter" in your recipe? If so, how much? If not, I'm not sure why you reference "wild yeast starter."

Anyway, yes it is true that rye flour has enzymes in it that convert starch to sugar more rapidly and effectively than those present in wheat flour. It is entirely possible that, by including rye flour in your dough and fermenting it for 18 hours that the rye enzymes have done their work so effectively that there is not very much food remaining for the yeast to eat in order to create the final rise after the loaves are shaped. The only ways to get around this are either a shorter bulk ferment or leaving out the rye flour for the bulk fermentation step.

To answer the other issue you raise: to the best of my knowledge there is nothing about acid or leavening with natural yeast/bacteria that would inhibit the action of these enzymes. And in fact there are other things about leavening with natural yeast/bacteria that militate against long rises: namely that longer rises lead to more accumulation of acid in the dough, and acid degrades gluten.

[HungryC]

You should get a copy of Hamelman's "Bread". He describes the Detmold 3-stage process for rye bread in detail. Or google Detmold process and you'll find a wealth of info on manipulating sourdough & rye.

[breadguy]

breadguy, I am not quite clear on your technique. What is it that you are fermenting for 18 hours? A sponge? Or the whole dough? Are you including some amount of "sourdough starter" in your recipe? If so, how much? If not, I'm not sure why you reference "wild yeast starter."

I have read quite a few recipes and info on sour dough, cold rise and overnight rise breads. I mill my flour the night before baking. I use no white flour so it is a bit harder for me to end up with well risen bread... and I have some great breads. However, even though I can bake a rye bread, I have some good Russian neighbors that are excellent critics of good rye bread. What they would like to eat sounds like the texture of sourdough. I am off the grid and have a small refrigerator. I am not going to keep a starter growing in the fridge. But, I have read about sour dough-like breads that use overnight or cold rise minimum-yeast recipes. So I have tried it a few times and it is amazing to bake a good tasting loaf of bread with no sugar or oil! And as prices are increasing on ingredients, (and I only use olive oil) oil-less and no sugar in some breads is the way to go for me. Letting the first rise go for 15-20 hours gives a chewy texture and good flavor. I had read in a bread book that the acidity of wild yeast starters keeps the enzymes under control. Then I wondered if my use of ascorbic acid all these years has had a similar effect on my WW bread. I have tried baking my 100% WW bread with out ascorbic acid and it does not rise as well. So ever since I was taught in the late 80's... I have always used Vitamin C in my dough. I had wondered if this would be good in the rye bread. I have a batch of bread in first rise and in the morning will add the rye flour and try it again. But then... I wonder if I should machine knead it at all? Will kneading overnight risen dough be good or bad?

I originally got this idea from a past bread baker that had an out door oven heated by wood. He said he mixed everything the night before but did not knead the doughs. He finished everything the next day and he had great bread, people told me. He said the action of the yeast during the night developed the gluten. So, this is my first try with rye bread. I am just trying to understand the chemistry.

[breadguy]

Anyway, yes it is true that rye flour has enzymes in it that convert starch to sugar more rapidly and effectively than those present in wheat flour. It is entirely possible that, by including rye flour in your dough and fermenting it for 18 hours that the rye enzymes have done their work so effectively that there is not very much food remaining for the yeast to eat in order to create the final rise after the loaves are shaped. The only ways to get around this are either a shorter bulk ferment or leaving out the rye flour for the bulk fermentation step.

Thanks for this. It gives me something to think about. [this morning] After 20 hours ferment, I added the rye and caraway seeds and mixed 5 min... formed the loaves and now they are in proofer rising. Maybe fermenting will be cut back to a shorter time? Will have to experiment. Funny... I took my "frisbe" looking loaves of rye out while selling yesterday and called them experimental rye, and sold each for $2.50 instead of $4, [1lb 14oz] and they all sold and people ripped in to them on the spot and ate and liked the flavor. .....Now to get a bit more rise

Edited October 19, 2011 by breadguy (log)

[breadguy]

Todays rye bread came out much better. This is 100% whole wheat with fresh milled rye flour. Being that this is red hard wheat, I am not sure it could have risen more. But next time I will let it go a little longer. I just did not want it to flop if I let it rise too long. The photo of the bread texture is a smaller loaf than the whole loaves in the other pictures. The flatter loaf is from yesterday when it did not rise well. Today's rise was about double... I think.

So... Fermentation time was 20 hours with: [@ floor room temperature.. 55-65 degrees]

5 lbs whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons yeast

1.5 Tablespoons salt

8 cups water.

Then this morning I added

4 cups rye flour

1/4 teaspoon ascorbic acid

2 tablespoons caraway seeds.

then, mixed 5 minutes in a 20 qt Hobart mixer with screw style dough hook.

I got 5 loaves weighing 1lb 14oz and a less than half size loaf. I used pie pans for this.

Then, in proofer that ended up getting up to 130 degrees and then cooled.... total about 1.5 hours and then in to a 350 degree convection oven for 30 minutes. tastes really good.

Next time I will keep an eye on the proofer and not let it go past 100 for a slower rise.

Edited October 19, 2011 by breadguy (log)

[Eastgate]

Just want to double-check the figures, bread guy. You have 5 lb flour and 4 lb water. That looks awfully dry to me. And then the next morning you're adding more flour.

Might you have meant "pints" where you typed "cups"?