The bulk fermentation stage is where you get to take a break and let your little helpers (yeast, enzymes, bacteria and gluten) take over.  So while they take over for the next 45 minutes, pour yourself a drink, find a comfortable chair and let’s ponder these little fellers.

What’s Happening During Bulk Fermentation?

We call this stage Bulk Fermentation because the dough is fermenting in one large ball.  At the bakery it may be a tub with 20kg of dough in it.  At home, maybe only four loaves. The large bowl of dough keeps warm easier and that warm environment helps the little fellers thrive so your bread gains flavour, volume and strength.

• Enzymes in the dough are working hard to break down starch molecules into sugars for both you to eat (flavour) and for the yeast to eat too.
• When the yeast cells aren’t dividing to make more yeast, they’re feeding on the sugar and belching out carbon dioxide.
• The carbon dioxide is trapped in the dough by the gluten protein, which during bulk fermentation continues to lengthen and strengthen into a web of protein.

I think of the gluten web like a balloon. When the gluten is fully developed, it can expand and trap gas just like a balloon, so your bread can rise and your loaf is light and airy, not a dense, heavy brick.

• Finally, yummy lactic acid bacteria goes to work on the starch too, creating a rainbow of flavour profiles.  Lactic acid bacteria is one of the main flavour catalysts in sourdough bread (I’ll cover that in a future course) but is present is smaller amounts in our Learning Loaf too.

Fold the Dough After 45 Minutes

Back to gluten for a second.  I mentioned that the gluten continues to develop during bulk fermentation, but we’re going to help it along a little by giving the dough a single stretch and fold after 45 minutes.

The stretch and fold will accomplish two things:

• Strengthen the gluten.  It’s relaxed a lot during bulk fermentation.  The fold will help it line up properly.
• Realign the temperature.  By now the outside of the dough is a little cooler than the cozy insides.  The fold will help move the cool bits into the middle.

Here’s how you do it.

Pour the Dough Back on the Counter

Don’t be scared if the dough ball spreads out a lot more than when you finished mixing.  That’s normal.

Stretch Out The Bottom Edge and Fold It Over the Middle

See how much the dough can stretch now?  The gluten is very extensible.  It won’t break.  The fold will help it become elastic too.  A balance between extensibility and elasticity is what we want for our loaf.

Repeat for the Top, Left and Right Sides

Feel free to turn the dough so you are always pulling the dough toward you and folding it away from you.  Do whatever is comfortable.

Roll the Dough Over and Place Back in the Bowl

Compare the dough in the bowl to the dough you started this step with.  Is it stronger?  Does the dough form more of a ball than a blob?   It should!

The dough should get smoother and smoother as we go, too.  From here on in, I try to be neat with my dough.  I’ll try as best as I can not to tear it up as I go.

Baker Tip:  As you practice with this loaf, you may find the dough isn’t quite strong enough when it comes time to bake.  Folding the dough twice during bulk fermentation (after 30 minutes and again after 1 hour) may help strengthen things up.  Adding and removing folds is an adjustment we use at the bakery when things start acting strange.

Cover the Bowl and Set in a Warm Place for 45 Minutes

This second 45 minute stage makes for a 1 hour 30 minute bulk fermentation in total.  Lovely.  Next time, we shape!

Once you have your tools and ingredients out, it’s time to get started for real. Let’s go!

Get Your Meez Ready

Baker term alert!  “Meez” is slang for the french mis en place, which translates to “putting in place.”  It refers to getting all your ingredients and tools out and getting your ingredients scaled out before you start mixing.

If you’ve ever dug through a drawer for a spatula with a hand that’s covered in goop, you’ll know why it’s a good idea to get your Meez in order first!

Some tips:

• Scale your flour right into your big mixing bowl.
• Scale the other dry ingredients – salt, yeast, sugar and milk powder – into a smaller bowl one at at time. Add to your flour one at a time as you get the weights right.
• Small amounts: You won’t need a lot of yeast most of the time. If you only need 3 or 4 grams, be sure to boldly add the yeast to your scaling bowl. The scale has trouble with accuracy if you dribble in one grain of yeast at a time. Over time, you’ll get used to how big of a pinch to grab to start with.
• Measure your butter. Leave it somewhere warm to soften up a bit.
• Water Temperature: Scale your water into your water jug. Make sure the water is tepid – 80F to 85F.  That sounds hot, but it isn’t really.  If the water feels just barely warm on your skin, it’s fine.

Our Meez is ready  Let’s go!

Roughly Incorporate The Ingredients

OK. Finally, let’s bring it all together. If you’re mixing by hand, try to pick one hand as your mixing hand and use it from here on out.  (When I took the pictures I had a “mixing hand” and a “click the camera” hand!)

With your mixing hand, gently mix up your dry ingredients in the bowl to get the salt, yeast, etc. throughout the flour.  Add the butter and roughly mix that in too.

Make a “well” in the middle of the flour and add the water into the well.

Gently swirl your mixing hand in the water, bringing flour into the mix.

Keep swirling, turning the bowl as needed, to get all the flour into the mix. It won’t look anything like a dough yet; more like a rough, extremely thick batter.

Once all the flour is wet (a few small dry bits are ok), you’re done for now. Clean off your mixing hand (it’ll be pretty goopy), cover the bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes.

What Just Happened?

At this stage you’re trying to get two things accomplished. Get the right amount of ingredients in the bowl and get everything wet.

Get Your Ingredients Right

And I mean right to the gram.

Scaling accurately is important if you want consistent results. Not just consistent flavour and texture, but consistent timing too.

Too much yeast and your dough will move too fast. Too little and you’ll be wishing you could go to bed before your loaves are ready to go in the oven.

Get Everything Wet

All those dry ingredients just sit there doing nothing until the water is added. Once water is in the bowl though, amazing things happen.

1. The flour hydrates. Ha! Three words that describe so much.
   • starch molecules that were broken during milling soak up the water and expand.
   • enzymes in the flour wake up and start attacking the other starch molecules, breaking them apart and turning them into sugar.
   • two proteins in the flour start connecting and combining into long chains called gluten
2. the yeast wakes up and starts looking for something to eat. Sugar. That would be the sugars that those enzymes are creating from the starch in the flour.
3. the salt, extra sugar and milk powder soak up some of the water, dissolve and start interacting with the flour at the molecular level too.

What Happens During The Rest?

We give the dough a rest at this point (artisan bakers call this stage “autolyse“) because the flour takes a long time to fully hydrate. So let’s give it time to finish the job.

In 20 minutes, that ugly, sticky mass you left in the bowl will already be more solid and easier to work, because so much of the water has been absorbed.

And the gluten in the flour will already have a head start in forming the long protein chains that will eventually raise your loaf. So you have less work to do in the next phase.

Next up:  We mix! But not for too long…