Stone Bread Degassing and Secondary Fermentation

Degassing and secondary fermentation can be done in the bread machine, outside of the bread machine, or not at all. I like to think of it as good, better, and best, and how you do it depends on the time you have to put into it, when you need the bread, the type of bread you want to make, and how hard you want to dry.

Let’s start with outside the machine degassing.

Dust your counter with flour, and then gently pull your dough from the bread machine. Again gently, stretch your dough to double its width, and fold it in thirds, like a letter going into an envelope — 1/3 up from the bottom, and other 1/3 down from the top. Spray it with oil, dust it with flour and cover it with a cloth. Try to be careful and not punch out the holes — you want them in your final loaf.

This should take only a couple of minutes, but it does mean that you need access to the dough in the middle of the day.

You can also degas inside the bread machine basket. The dough should be near the top of the basket. Gently push it down to about half its size, spray with oil and cover with plastic.

Again, it only takes a minute, but you need access to your dough. Perhaps you can get home for lunch, or convince a spouse, friend, or child to do it. The good news is that even if you don’t do it, forget to do it, or your spouse forgets to do it — don’t worry. You will still have great bread for dinner that night.

Seriously, you can skip this step, or completely ignore your bread at this point, and still end up with something great. You have a couple of options.

The all-day method

Add your bread ingredients to your pre-ferment before you head out for the day, start the dough cycle, and just don’t worry about it. Your dough will rise and rise, and eventually fall back into itself. When you get home some number of hours (even 8-10), you will have the dough with a thin air-dried crust on it that is ready for proofing. Don’t worry, be happy, and your bread will be great.

The “when you get home” method

Leave your pre-ferment in the refrigerator all day — it will be happy and develop wonderful character. Take it out of the refrigerator when you get home and let it sit for 30-45 minutes to take the chill off. Add your bread ingredients, and push the dough button. The dough will be mixed in about 20 minutes and will rise until you need to use it that evening.

The last-minute method

The last option is to let your pre-ferment sit outside all day bubbling away. Make sure you have sprayed oil on the top and covered it with plastic. The plastic wrap will keep the air-dried film from developing, and the oil will keep the plastic from sticking to the dough. Add your ingredients and push the dough cycle. You should have a nice dough in less than an hour.

You now have your dough and are ready to Shape and Proof your Pizza Stone bread.