At a comfortable room temperature, our bulk fermentation for the workhorse loaf will take about one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours. As a rule, warmer dough will rise faster than colder dough, so make sure you take stock of the environment in which you're baking. I can hear you asking, "Why not make my dough really warm so it'll proof faster and I can have bread sooner?
Chief among them is that the fermentation that produces good flavor really only takes place in earnest after the yeast have exhausted most of their oxygen supply. If we allow our dough to rise too quickly, we'll get lots of CO2 but less alcohol than we want, meaning our bread won't taste as good. Furthermore, gluten is less temperature sensitive than yeast.
Meaning that if we get our dough too warm, our yeast will inflate the dough faster than its gluten structure can organize itself—the bubbles that make up our dough's internal structure will over-inflate and pop like balloons.
This will hurt our shaping efforts later and give us flatter, less sexy looking bread. I know, two hours feels like a long time. Trust me, it's worth it. Don't rush the bulk rise. So, can the bulk rise be slowed down? A slower bulk rise will encourage more flavor and structural development up to a point. But remember, the yeast has a limited food supply, and we want to make sure to leave it enough food for a successful final proof, and make sure enough sugars are present to allow our crusts to properly caramelize when we bake them.
If you want to let you dough proof for longer, try bulk-fermenting it in a cooler place, but don't allow it to go longer than three hours or structure and flavor may be compromised. For the workhorse loaf, a bulk proof of approximately two hours gives us the optimal balance of flavor and texture.
Practically speaking, all this means you shouldn't let the workhorse bulk-ferment anywhere you wouldn't want to hang out. If you're working in a really hot kitchen, allow your dough to bulk ferment in cool a cabinet close to the floor.
If you're working in a very cold kitchen, put your stove on low and set your dough near it. If you live in a home where you can control the temperature of rooms without needing to beg your superintendant for a favor, set your thermostat to 75 degrees and stop thinking about it. But a watched dough never rises, so don't stare at it the whole time. Eat a sandwich, make your bed, or get to work cooking the rest of your meal.
Let the dough do the work and try not to mess with it too much. Distractions are a home-baker's best friend. That said, us bakers do have some important work to do during the bulk fermentation. About a half hour into the bulk rise, it's time to fold, or turn, our dough. Folding dough effectively takes a bit of practice, but is one of my favorite parts of making bread.
A good fold lets us stare into a dough's soul. So, why do we fold dough? Lots of reasons. To start with, folding dough develops gluten structure.
By first stretching and layering our gluten, we help our dough more effectively hold water and air. As we trap more air in our dough during these motions, folding also helps to establish a more open crumb structure in our baked loaves.
Secondly, folding dough redistributes our yeast and its food, making sure each little Cookie Monster gets its fill. Also, folding dough helps to regulate its temperature, keeping it consistent through its mass. Together, these two consequences of folding regulate yeast activity, and help our dough stay on schedule. To perform a fold, start by wetting your dough spatula and hands with water. Then, gently scrape around the edges of the bowl to prevent sticking, and make a clean fold possible.
Without tugging, pull the side farthest from you up and towards you, and fold your dough in half. Give the bowl a quarter turn, then perform the same motion again. Give the bowl a half turn, and repeat the same motion. Lastly, pull the unfolded side of your dough carefully up from the bottom, and pull it up and over to form a neat package, like so. All the while, allow the dough to stretch itself—your hands are just assistants.
Performing these motions too aggressively may tear the gluten, making the process counter-productive. The dough should now feel taught but pillowy, and have a spring to the touch.
Also, you'll notice that the dough is far less sticky than before, mostly because gluten is AMAZING, and does all sorts of useful things with water and air. Re-cover the bowl and have a cocktail. Our second fold will be performed about half an hour later, when the creases from our first fold have melded together, showing us that our gluten network has relaxed and is ready to be re-stretched.
With this second fold we want to be very careful not to push too hard on our dough, or we might de-gas it and undo a lot of the work done by the yeast and ourselves thus far. Storing dough in the refrigerator can slow the rise for hours or longer, depending on the dough. Some dough can be left out at room temperature overnight, but this often leads to overfermentation. The most important reason that you want to refrigerate retard your dough is so you can prevent it from turning into a flat and overfermented mess.
When the dough overferments, or overproofs, it means that either the yeast has completely run out of their food sugars and starches in the dough or the dough has risen too much and collapsed. The idea behind refrigerating the dough is that it can slow the activity of the yeast dramatically, which in turn slows their ability to consume their food and produce more gas. An added bonus to this extra-long rising time is that the flavors can develop much more.
The dough's temperature will be dependent on the temperature of the water you used to make it and room temperature. To determine whether the dough is risen enough, I use the technique shown in my regular pizza dough and quick pizza dough videos, that is also demonstrated in the picture at the top. Visually, the dough should appear to be double in volume, resulting in the dough staying indented when a finger is gently pressed on the surface. If you need a warmer place to rise your dough, it can be placed in a covered bowl set over a pan of warm water.
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