No Knead Bread

[Yael]

I've been making the "no knead bread" recipe that the New York Times made popular a couple of years ago. I'm wondering if this would be considered a fermented food, since it rest at 70 degrees for up to 18 hours.

Recipe is as follows:
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

[Holly]

It is fermented as a live organism is being used...but my curiosity has been similiar in that if "quick rise" yeast is used to do this no-knead bread and fermented that long does it rid the grains of phytic acid which traditional "quick rise" yeasted bread recipes does not.(ie. 1-2 hour rise...)

[Lycoperdon]

MMMMmmmm I made this recipe today with spelt fout (my partner is allergic to regular wheat) and it was delicious. Thanks for posting.

[Lycoperdon]

On second though the dough was a little too moist inside and a little bunt on the outside. I used spelt flour and my lid didn't fit on perfectly also my temp was hard to control so it was a little high and little low but never really right on. Do you know what would cause it to be too moist?

[Ronyon]

Ive made a lot of this bread, I find the interior is perfect at 200 degrees. Burnt usually means heat is too high. Even after testing my oven and adjusting for its "personality"( its an ancient Chambers stove), I have still decided on dropping the temp to 400 for perfect bread.
The lid is troubling. I use a dutch oven. It works perfectly. The key to this bread is wet dough, which when heated emits lots of steam.
Said steam cooks the bread, making for a very crusty loaf.
If the lid isnt tight or heavy enough the steam just escapes... and the process is side tracked.

One last thing- I believe Spelt is low in gluten( which is probably why you are using it), and thus the bread wont rise nearly as much, coming out spongier and flatter.I have been making lower gluten breads in a load pan within the dutch oven- it helps the rise some...