How do I manage sourdough fermentation in hot summer temperatures above 30°C?
For high temps, try reducing your starter to 1-5% to slow fermentation. Keep your dough and starter at similar temps, around 30°C, to ensure even fermentation. Your ratios look good, just adjust based on your flour's absorption. Keep experimenting and enjoy the journey! 😊
Answered by Hendrik, The Bread Code
From the book
As explained earlier the key to making great bread is a slow but not too slow fermentation. Enzymes require time to break down your dough. Taking all this into consideration, I try to aim for a fermentation time of around 8 to 12 hours. This seems to be the sweet spot for most of the flours that I have worked with. To achieve this, I use around 5 % of sourdough starter in summer times (temperatures around 25 °C (77 °F) in the kitchen). In winter times I opt for around 10 % up to 20 % sourdough starter (kitchen temperature around 20 °C (68 °F)). This allows me to use a sourdough starter that’s not in perfect condition. As explained earlier, your bread dough is essentially a gigantic starter. The low inoculation rate allows the starter to regrow inside your main dough into a desirable balance. Furthermore, the enzymes have enough time to break down the flour. This also allows me to skip the so-called autolysis step completely (more in the next section). This greatly simplifies the whole process.
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