Why am I putting my dough in the refrigerator overnight?

[wheels]

Just two observations:

A dough scraper's a God-send for wet doughs and tensioning the skin when shaping the dough makes heck of a lot of difference to the end result.

Phil

[Ruralidle]

Two very good points Phil. Proper shaping and skin tensioning are very important - I just wish I was better at both

[Vindii]

What does this mean?

tensioning the skin when shaping the dough

[Ruralidle]

Think of the dough as a bit like a balloon. The outer skin of which (for the most part) can be stretched into a smooth almost dry surface. These 2 descriptions might help: -

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24998/ ... lustration

and

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19346/ ... l-pictures

[Fatmat]

I've recently taken up bread making and am focused on various techniques using sourdough. I'm in the process of working on one recipe that calls for putting the dough in the ice box after the first rise and then pull it out and let it finish after 15 to 18 hours in the chiller. Why????

What is the purpose of stoping second rising action?

I think that an enzyme in the flour called amylase breaks down the starch into a type of sugar called Maltose - this is sweet and has buckets of flavour unlike the starch. This action will take place quite happily at cooler temperatures.

The yeast produces an enzyme called maltase which breaks down the maltose into glucose which is then suitable food for the yeast to eat. Once broken down and eaten, the flavours of the sugars are gone. This process will only take place at warmer temperatures.

Therefore the idea of slowing down the action of the yeast is that loads of tasty maltose is released before the yeast has chance to 'eat' it. A similar effect can be produced by adding lower amounts of dried yeast or starter to your dough.