Batch 524

Waking early this morning, I thought it might be a good plan to bake batch 524 early, before the sultry heat of the afternoon to come set in.

So kicking off at around 0430, we had a first rise of around two hours, maybe half as long as normal, and a second rise of 80 minutes, maybe two thirds as long as normal. With this last making a slow start, as I had expected with the dough being rather damp for the second knead, but really picking up for the last half hour.

I had to prick the top bubble of one of the loaves to get it in the oven, resulting in the scar right in the snap above left. Part of one of the new loaf tins from Tavistock can be seen bottom left, from which one can deduce the clean exit after due buttering and flouring.

All done by 0930, which must be a record.

And evidence of the way the speed of reactions can vary with temperature noted somewhere (actually, shortly before Figure 2) in reference 1. The house has not really heated up yet, and this early in the morning, I would not have thought the difference in temperature would have been more than a few degrees, say a lot less than ten degrees Centigrade. But a dramatic speeding up of the yeast action. Which may result in loss of flavour - but that remains to be seen.

I am also reminded that an old building like GOGGS in Great George Street was often pleasantly cool until quite late on in the summer, it taking a while for the heat of the sun to soak into all the masonry.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/more-city-walls.html.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=bookish+dream. A bit of trivia about GOGGS.