SOURDOUGH AND PROOFING EXPLAINED

Did you say "fermentation"?

Is that gross?

What's proofing?

Bubbles? Growth? Sourdough?

Welcome to sourdough explained. Where we hope to explain exactly what is going on in your homemade sourdough bread dough.

When you combine flour, almost any kind of flour, and water into a jar. And let it sit at room temperature for a while, you'll see some changes. You'll find that it changes texture, size, and smell. Most obviously you'll find that it has bubbles.

If you were to zoom into that flour and water with a microscope, you'd find naturally occurring yeast and bacteria. And those naturally occurring organisms feed on the flour and ferment your mixture. Fermentation is a process where the yeast and bacteria convert the sugar and starches in the flour into acids, gases, or alcohol. Basically the yeast and bacteria are burping and farting air into your mixture. That's what makes the bubbles and those bubbles are what turn bread from a hard brick into the delicious and airy food that we love.

So if you take some of that fermented flour and water, what we call starter or leavening, and we mix it with more flour and water, we make our dough. When we let dough rest and rise - that's called proofing.

So what does it mean to under-proof or over-proof? What is the right time to bake or refrigerate your dough? Well to understand proofing is to remember our yeast and bacteria which are giving our sourdough its airy textures and sour flavor. When you first mix together your flour and water, the yeast and bacteria are happily eating the starches and sugars in the flour and getting active and bubbly. And as time passes, they keep eating and eating until we reach a point, where its running out of fuel and that activity slows down and those bubbles deflate and our dough shrinks in size.

Under-proofing happens when you bake your loaf too early in this process, and over-proofing occurs when you bake too late in the process. Both will likely result in a flat and hard loaf.

The ideal time to bake is when that yeast and bacteria is approaching its peak activity level. And it's best to refrigerate your dough, if that's part of your process, a little earlier than the peak of yeast and bacterial activity.

So why refrigerate your dough at all? Well, you can use temperature to slow down or speed up your proofing.

Cold temperatures slow down yeast and bacteria activity. This means if you're not ready to bake your loaf yet or you want to slow down the fermentation, which often gives better flavor, put your dough in the fridge. Or do like us lazy bakers, and use cold water in your dough mixing to prevent over-proofing and a more forgiving experience.

In contrast, if you're in a hurry, use warm water or a warming plate to speed up the fermentation of your dough. Although you will have to keep an eye on your dough in this case because your window for ideal proofing becomes very small.

We hope this helps you in your sourdough journey. Happy baking!