Learned the hard way about salt timing in bread dough

I switched up my usual routine last Tuesday and added salt after the autolyse instead of mixing it in with the flour. The dough felt super slack and sticky for the first few folds, it was a mess. After about 45 minutes of stretch and folds it tightened right up and the crumb was way more open than my normal loaves. Now I'm wondering if I've been killing my yeast by adding salt too early all along. Anyone else try delayed salt and see a real texture difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordanm1914d ago

Devil's advocate" is fine and dandy, but so is a loaf that doesn't fight you for the first 45 minutes. I get that gluten develops on its own, but my dough going from a sticky mess to tight and smooth right after adding salt is pretty hard to ignore. Maybe I like my bakes to be a little more cooperative right from the start.

laurar3814d ago

Hang on, I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I've been doing the exact opposite for years - I always mix salt right in with the flour at the start, and my loaves turn out just fine. Like, I get nice oven spring and a good crumb structure every time. If your dough went from sticky to tight in 45 minutes, maybe that's just the gluten developing normally, not some delayed salt magic. I think a lot of people overthink this stuff and blame salt when really the issue is hydration, flour type, or even the temperature of their kitchen. Plus, if you added salt late and your dough was a mess for the first folds, that's a pain to work with and could mess up your shaping later.