The weather has become warmer and you are noticing your bread is behaving differently and not in a good way!! What’s going on???
During warmer days two factors have changed.
1. Yeast activity is increasing. Your bread is fermenting faster andthere is a good chance of bread over proofing.
2. Humidity is increasing. If you live in an area with humidity (Everywhere except deserts and higher altitudes.) the humidity is increasing with the warmer weather and your bread is becoming difficult to shape.
Yeast activity is very reactive to temperature.
In warmer weather, yeast will become more active and bread will ferment faster, potentially creating over proofed bread. Both baker’s yeast breads and sourdough breads will ferment faster in warmer weather. Many recipes will say let rise 50-90 minutes. This means during warmer weather both the bulk ferment and final rise can be as quick as 50 minutes.
Flour is hygroscopic, which means it will absorb moisture from the atmosphere.
A warm day will hold more moisture (humidity) in the air than a cooler day.
On a warmer day your flour is absorbing additional moisture from the air and the hydration level of your bread is increasing without you realizing it.
For doughs of 68% hydration or below, this is generally not an issue as 1-2 percent more water is easily managed. Sourdough breads with 71% hydration or higher will notice a difference as the bread will be harder to shape.
How to make successful bread during warmer weather.
1. Reduce the temperature of your water to slow down the yeast activity. See “Determining Water Temperature Chart” below.
2. Consider using 10-20% less yeast for baker’s yeast bread and 10-20% levain for sourdough bread. The bread will most likely stay on expected schedule with less yeast. Be sure to add the flour and water taken from the levain back into the final dough.
Example: Levain is 150 grams. 10% of 150 grams is 15 grams. With a 100% or liquid levain 7.5 grams water and 7.5 grams flour were taken out of the levain. Add the 7.5 grams water and 7.5 grams water to the flour and water in the remainder of the recipe.
3. Hold back about 1 tablespoon per loaf from the overall liquid added to the bread. After the autolyze, determine if you need to add more water. If so, add 1 teaspoon at a time, mix thoroughly after each teaspoon and determine if more water is needed.
4. Try to keep the rising dough temperature 75°F or lower. If you find your fermenting dough getting warmer than 75°F, place the rising container into the microwave or oven with a bowl of ice. This will reduce the temperature around the dough without having to use the air conditioner.