Well ideally, to start rising, bread dough should be somewhere around 72-76
F for a slow, all day rise. You can find out the temperature of the dough
by sticking a thermometer into the middle of the dough. Make sure you keep
the dough moist and covered at all times or else it'll have trouble rising
(it may not rise at all or burst out the seams or rise unevenly).
After that, it's really hard to say how long any particular dough will take
to rise...It largely depends on the environment: humidity, temperature of
the room, draftiness, etc. Each dough can be really different on any given
day. That's why you see "rise till double" all the time :). Cause nobody
can tell you how long it'll actually take. I can say that once a dough has
reached the ideal temperature for rising, it can possibly take anywhere
from 2 1/2 to 4 hours after that...
Roxanne Rieske (Rokzane)
rokzane@comcast.net
www.rokzane.bravejournal.com