On 18 Oct 2016 16:05:50 GMT, notbob > wrote:

>On 2016-10-18, Janet B > wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 18 Oct 2016 07:24:14 +0300, Opinicus
>
>>>During my own breadmaking days (several decades ago) it was my
>>>experience that yeast doughs kept for more than five days or so
>>>developed a (not entirely unpleasant) "winy" taste and odor.
>
>> The refrigeration encourages the development of organisms other than
>> just the yeast that add to the flavor profile of the finished bread.
>
>Isn't that what sourdough is?
>
>nb

Bob

Sourdough captures wild yeast, encourages their growth and uses the
wild yeast to raise bread. Sourdough requires nurturing. You have to
keep it fed to remain active. Or refrigerate the starter and
re-activate it when you want to make bread.
This recipe is basically the method and recipe devised by Jeff
Hertzberg and put forth in his book in 2007. Quite a few well known
bakers tinkered with different approaches to refrigerated dough. This
recipe is about as low tech, labor intensive and convenient as it
gets.
The method requires only mixing. No kneading is required and is
actually detrimental to getting a good final oven spring. Wheat flour
in a mixed dough will develop gluten on its own. As to flavor, the
dough will develop some of the overtones of sourdough over time in the
refrigerator. To my taste, this approach gives a bread with a nutty
background flavor more than a sour flavor.
The steam is necessary. Please don't try the old saw of throwing ice
cubes into a tray in the oven. That doesn't even make sense. It
isn't necessary to open the oven and spritz the dough as it bakes.
This approach is just dead simple.
HTH
Janet US