Tried a 72 hour cold ferment on my pizza dough and it turned into soup

I left it on the counter for three days last August and walked into a kitchen that smelled like a brewery with a puddle of slime under the bowl. Has anyone else ruined a batch by pushing the fermentation window too far?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_wren5d ago

That's a rough way to learn, but at least it was a good reminder that yeast doesn't need much encouragement to go wild. My worst incident was leaving a sourdough starter on the counter during a heatwave. It smelled like a barnyard and pushed the lid right off the jar, leaving a sticky mess all down the cabinet. That taught me that temperature matters way more than the calendar. Some folks swear by that long cold ferment in the fridge, but I think there's a fine line between complex flavor and something that's just plain gone too far.

jenny_carr525d ago

Opened the cupboard to grab flour and got smacked in the face with a science experiment that smelled like a cow pasture. Guess that's one way to learn about fermentation speed.