The Fresh Loaf

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slowing down a poolish

sallam's picture
sallam

slowing down a poolish

Greetings

I'm trying to think of ways to slow down a poolish..

I bake once a week, and I use a combination of both the old dough & poolish methods: I always take about a cup of last week's proofed dough, and keep it in the fridge for next week's baking, to use instead of yeast. The night before baking I take the old dough out, keep it on the counter for an hour, then mix it with a 100% hydration poolish that has all my recipe's water and an equal amount of flour. The next day, about 9 hours later, the poolish reaches its peak breaking point (I know this when cross indentations start to show up on the poolish surface) I then add the rest of the flour and other ingredients, knead and proof.
The problem is that this cycle takes about 14 hours. My baking should be ready for my family by 6 pm, which means I should start making my poolish at 4 am! ..so inconvenient. I need to slow down my poolish about 4 hours, so that I can start the poolish at 12 am.

Here is a few ideas that I'll try this weekend..

  • keep poolish flour in fridge to use it chilled
  • use cold water from the fridge
  • use old dough right from the fridge without letting it sit on the counter
  • add recipe's salt to the poolish
  • keep the poolish in a colder spot (near a window) instead of kitchen counter

Do you think those tricks could buy me 4 more hours?
I know I can just retard the poolish in the fridge, but a container for 2kg of dough plus expansion would occupy much space there, plus I don't know the time it would need to peak in the fridge (any idea?)
If you have any other ideas, please share them with me..

Many thanks.

Darxus's picture
Darxus

Use less old dough.  To reduce the ratio of yeast to fresh dough.  I think an 18 hour ferment should still give you fine flavor.  

But I'm still quite new to this stuff.

gerhard's picture
gerhard

I think you worry too much, what if you let the poolish age an extra four hours, I doubt that it would have a huge effect on the final product. If it does I would play with the ratio poolish to total dough weight.

Gerhard

sallam's picture
sallam

I've decided to do a 75% hydration pre-ferment (can I still call it biga, or poolish?) (1000g flour:750g water) plus 250g old dough. Its now 11 hours, and it has already doubled in size.

Should I stop there, or keep it going? What is the peak signs, or break point, to tell when to use it? In 100% hydration poolish I can tell it reached its peak when I notice that crosses started to show up on the surface. But what signs should I look for in more firm 70% hydration pre-ferment?
In poolish, the cross signs appears when it has more than trippled in size. Should I allow the 75% hydration to reach tripple its size too?