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this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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Lemmy Bread
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Were there any deviations from what you normally do? Even if the ingredients are the same. Higher ambient/ water temp for example, stick a leftover bowl of still warm pasta in the fridge?
If everything else is the same, the variable for sweetness is usually time or temp.
I have lived in places where the mineral content varied by season though. More iron in the water when it was dry (generally perceived as sweeter, also gives yeast more to feed on), more calcium and silicates as we start to move into wetter conditions (inhibits yeast, and tap temperature is lower), into full wet with low minerals and very low tap temperature.
The whole 48 hours fridge thing is new. I usually do the whole bread within a single day (so roughly 12 hours of proofing). It's the same dough as usual (same flour, same water, same proportions), but since I gave it more time for proofing, I expected the sweetness to go down, and other flavors to come through stronger.
Now that I think about it, that expectation was a bit wrong, since the total yeast-activity should be roughly the same. It didn't 'eat' more carbohydrates thus producing more CO2. It (ideally) did the same amount of fermentation as usual, just slower.
Well, I guess now I know that.
Ah, that's a whole new ballgame, I missed that part. It is breaking down starch into simple sugars which taste sweeter obviously.
It's unclear in my previous reply, sweetness will increase with temp and/or time, up to a point where other flavors will be more prominent. Usually nuttiness followed by sourness.
In extreme cold ferments (5 to 7 days) you can develop cheesy flavors too. These are very difficult to work with, but quite flavorful. They usually remind me of Époisses.
All of this depends very much on initial dough temp and counter rise temp/time. Higher dough temp means more yeast activity (assuming the recipe is otherwise unchanged). A longer counter rise, or one at a higher ambient temp do similar things. This is all before the cold ferment.
Once you start introducing variables the outcome can change drastically. I view this as a good thing.