Saw a shop in Portland cold proof everything at 50F and I'm never going back

I always thought cold proofing was just a fancy term for slowing things down when you're in a bind. Then I visited a small bakery in Portland last week and watched them pull trays of dough out of a 50F walk-in that had been sitting there since the day before. The owner let me try a roll from the cold batch next to one from their regular counter proof, and the cold one had these tiny bubbles all through the crumb that the other one just did not have. I went home and tried it with my own rolls, 18 hours in the fridge, and now my counter proofing feels like I've been rushing everything for years. Has anyone else made the switch, and do you adjust your yeast amount or just let it ride?

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matthewp529d ago

Ha, hold up, cold proofing is not just about slowing things down when you're in a bind, that's the part I'd push back on. The cold is actually doing real work in there, the yeast slows way down but the enzymes keep breaking down starch into sugar, so you get more flavor and those tiny bubbles you noticed. That's why your 18 hour fridge rolls tasted so different, it's not just timing, it's actual changes happening in the dough. As for yeast, most people just let it ride if they're doing a straight dough, but if your recipe was built for a fast counter proof you might wanna cut the yeast a bit since it has way more time to work. Sounds like you already found your answer by taste testing though.

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