About three years ago when I started back with sourdough ("Fred" was hiding in the back of the fridge since 2009, mostly forgotten), I was using this method. It's very similar to what Elaine Boddy (@elaine_foodbod) does, and I learned from her. It worked mostly okay, but I ended up overproofing the doughs since our house is a lot warmer--even at night. I also didn't like the fact of not having my sourdough for breakfast, so I worked on changing the timing and starting in the morning instead in the evening, leaving the dough on the counter throughout the day and putting it in the fridge in the evening. Again, it kept overproofing even more, since room temp was up to 72 most days, more in the summer. I did a lot of tweaking, and now, three years later, I have learned that I can use this method perfectly, but need to reduce the time on the counter to 5 hours. Temperature is the key here if the dough is overproofing. I have placed it in the beer fridge before @40F which works as well, but will taker longer. "Fred" got two brothers in the meantime, "Sir Bobby Farts-Alot" and "The GardenGnome" whom I grew outside last summer and in the greenhouse when he gets fed. He smells less "funky" :) I do love the hands-off method though.

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