Chief Longwind Of The North
Certified/Certifiable
I have some dough rising right now. I have been having good results with a 20 minute autolyse after mixing.
Today after letting it autolyse I started the kneading and realized a couple minutes in I forgot the salt. Disaster averted.
I am also reducing my yeast a bit to see if I can get a slower rise.
FrankZ; Take a ceramic cup, add a few tbs. of flour, a half spoonful of sugar, and enough water to create a flour slurry or paste. Cover this with cheesecloth and place on a clean cupboard. Let it sit for a week or two, until it gets all frothy. You now have sourdough starter. It takes a little longer for the wild yeast to raise the bread dough, as you start with less yeast. This, as you suspect, allows the gluten to relax a little, and gives you a more tender crumb, but not too tender. And you get great sourdough bread.
Try it. If you like sourdough, you just save a bit of the raw dough from you bread, place it back into the cup, cover, and let sit on the counter, feeding it every week or two with a little water and flour. You'll never have to purchase yeast for bread again.
If you don't like the bread quite so sour, combine dough made with store bought yeast with and equal amount of sour dough. I did this to make pigs in the blanket, with the fresh dough wrapped around hot dogs, and allowed to rise before baking. I took them to a pot luck. Everyone fell in love with the dish. That was about two years back and I'm still getting asked when I'm going to make them again. Personally, I thought the flavor was the best I'd ever eaten, for pigs in the blanket.
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North