We're going to make some 60% mother dough.
Mother dough basically means a dough from which all other dough's come from.
But the way I use it, I use it to mean a cold pre-ferment.
This morning I'm going to be using my 100% starter which was fed just last evening.
And it's very vigorous.
And we will start with 170 grams of the 100% starter.
There we go.
Then we will use a 170 grams of water.
Stir that up a bit.
Now the reason for a cold ferment is because...
it's basically a long autolyse in a cold temperature.
And what it does is it slows the yeast down 
so it can give,
well it slows everything down,
but basically yeast tends to overwhelm
the dough.
So if you slow the yeast down,
you give the bacteria and the enzymes a
bit of a chance to do their activity on the dough.
The bacteria have a longer chance at a slow rate of producing lactic acid bacteria
which is for flavor.
And the enzymes,
you have the alpha amylase enzymes
and the protease enzymes
which work on the dough.
The protease works on the gluten to modify it,
so that it's more extensible or stretchy.
And the alpha amylase enzyme works to break down starch and produce sugar.
So basically, when you use the cold mother dough you can get a wonderful crust.
Because the sugars are available
and you you have this wonderful crunchy crust
 that shatters.
And it has a wonderful color
and the bread has a terrific flavor.
So doing a cold mother dough, and adding some of that to your dough,
really makes a great tasting bread, 
with a really nice crust.
So let's go ahead and add the flour.
This time I'm going to add a little bit of whole wheat flour and that would be to boost the enzyme activity.
So I have 40 grams of whole wheat flour.
You can use all white flour and that
would be 340 grams of white flour.
That is very often what I do
but if you want to boost the enzyme activity add some whole wheat or rye flour
and it doesn't matter, 
just you know, even 10 or 20 grams in
instead of 20 grams of white flour 
will help the enzyme activity.
So what you want is 340 total grams of flour.
Now this is a 60% dough and it is pretty stiff.
So get in there and work all the flour in.
Now what I usually do is I will leave this out 
for about an hour
and then put it in the refrigerator.
Other times I just put it in the refrigerator right away.
And that depends upon when I'm planning to use it.
Leaving it out for an hour will give it a jump start
in fermentation activity.
If you're not planning to use it, for you know, another four or five days,
then just stick it straight into the refrigerator.
I'm hoping to use this within three days so
I'll leave it out for an hour today.
Mother dough shouldn't be used right away you should allow it to ferment at least 3 days before using it
and then you can use it all the way up until it starts falling apart and feels like glue.
As long as you have strength in the dough and the gluten hasn't fallen apart,
you can still use the mother dough.
You can also take it out and feed it with
60% hydration dough
and keep it going.
And 60% hydration dough is for every 100
grams of flour you add 60 grams of water.
And then just feed your mother dough with that.
OK that's looking pretty good.
Write the date on the top of the lid or mark it on your calendar when you made it up.
And like I said, I'll leave it out for an hour and then I'll put it in the refrigerator.
And in three days I'll bake with it.
Now I'm going to use 60% mother dough.
And this is how it looks after it's been in the refrigerator for three days.
It's got the fermentation going on you can see that.
See all the nice bubbles here? And the gluten strands?
That's what gluten strands look like.
This is cold fermented mother dough.
It was mixed up and then it was put in
there for 3 days.
And it's good to leave it in for 3-5 days
You can use it for a week depending upon when the gluten no longer has any strength.
When it just falls apart like glue then it's
no longer good to use.
But it's very strong right now so you don't have to worry about that.
