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Summer Bread Baking Tips
Summertime heat makes dough rise much faster and that speed can catch you by surprise even if you’re a “seasoned” baker (pun intended). The extra hot days of summer call for modifications to recipe timing and even target dough expansion during the first rise. Everyone has a different idea of “extra hot” but a temperature increase from what you’re used to is the common denominator. In the examples below, my kitchen temperature was around 80°F. Below are some strategies for preventing runaway dough but don’t despair if you occasionally end up with a bloated, sweaty dough in your proofing basket because the bread usually still turns out delicious and may even have a more open crumb than usual, though often at the expense of being a bit flat.
Tips for the Bulk Fermentation
While the easiest thing to do is simply plan for your dough to rise really fast because of the high ambient temperature, if you want a longer process — for added flavor, development of dough strength, schedule preference — you can try some of these strategies:
If home-milling, prep your flour ahead of time so it drops to room temperature or even cooler in the refrigerator.*
Use less sourdough starter in the dough.*
Mix the dough with very cold water.*
Place the dough in a cooler with ice packs or a basement if that’s an option.
Refrigerate the dough for several hours.
* In these scenarios, the dough will likely have warmed up considerably by the time the bulk fermentation is complete. The fermentation is racing along in a warm dough so you may want to end the first rise at less expansion than the recipe recommends and/or skip any instructions to pre-shape and bench rest the dough.
Below are photos of a dough that expanded by less than 50%, but the dough was quite warm so fermentation continued at a rapid pace during the bench rest and the 20-minutes room temperature proofing before refrigeration. As a result, the dough was overproofed by morning.
Tips for the Final Proof
The strategies above will help slow the bulk fermentation, but by the time the first rise is complete, the microbial population is large and active. How to best handle the second rise depends on the dough temperature when you shape it. Here are some guidelines you might follow:
If you chilled the dough during the bulk fermentation and it’s still cool, proofing at room temperature will probably proceed more or less as expected. That said, you may want to keep the dough far from the preheating the oven.
If the dough is warm and you want to proof it at room temperature, you might skip or at least shorten the bench rest, and you should definitely watch the dough closely. Consider starting the oven preheat as soon as you’ve shaped the dough. Alternatively, put the dough in the freezer for 30 minutes during the preheat. In addition to slowing the final proof, this stiffens the dough so it spreads less when turned out of the basket; scoring is easier too.
If your dough is warm and you want to proof it in the refrigerator, place it in the refrigerator as soon as you’ve shaped it. A warm dough takes longer to come down to semi-dormant refrigerator temperatures. This is to say that an 80°F dough will keep rising rapidly in the refrigerator for longer than a 65°F dough that is put in at the same time.
Below are photos of a dough that expanded less than 50% during the first rise and had a short bench rest. The dough was warm, so I proofed it at room temperature for only 1 hour and then put it in the freezer for 30 minutes while the oven preheated. The shape was taller than the bread above but the crumb was tighter. Because I was able to babysit the final proof, if I were to do this bread again, I would let the dough expand more during the first rise.
Hydration Tips
Warm air tends to be more humid, and flour absorbs this moisture from the air, so you may find you need to use less water than a recipe calls for.
Warm dough also feels floppier and stickier than cool dough. Plan to use more flour on your work surface for shaping and to coat your proofing basket.
Miscellaneous: Salt
Salt slows down the enzymatic and fermentation activity in dough. If your dietary considerations allow it and you enjoy the flavor, you can add more salt to your dough.
Note: I created these summertime bread baking tips while developing our Chia Pudding Sourdough Bread recipe.
Summer Bread Baking Tips