The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

poolish

Barbarat's picture
Barbarat

poolish

Hi, I am baking some of my yeasted breads with a poolish which I feed with a pinch of instant yeast. could I replace this pinch of yeast with a glob of leftover levain? The final dough would have yeast again.

Thanks for your input.   Barbara

davidg618's picture
davidg618

You might be interested in reading

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32383/old-dough-vs-natural-levain

Lots of good information, relavant in some of the comments.

I think your levain might be viable, but weakened after 24 hours.  Consider feeding it, or just keeping a piece of bread dough.

David G

theresasc's picture
theresasc

I have been making my everyday yeasted bread with a portion of my rye starter discards.  As I start feeding my rye, getting ready for a bake, I've been placing the discards into a jar and into the frig.  l was using about a 60g poolish for a single loaf of yeasted bread that is 100g ww flour and 200g ap flour.  Once I started playing with the rye starter, I've been using 60g of sarter instead of the poolish.  It works very well and adds another layer of flavor with the rye.

Theresa

 

lumos's picture
lumos

I have tried replacing commercial yeast with levain (not quite discard but refreshed one as I never have discard) to make poolish a quite few times with my regular recipes for baguette, focaccia, etc. It works alright, but it makes slightly different result. I always find it produces slightly denser crumb than yeast-based one and definitely different flavour/aroma. 

jyslouey's picture
jyslouey

Good question as I'm also experimenting with my starter.  I'm definitely bookmarking the link for a more indepth  understanding of this very complex subject. Thanks for posing the question!!

 

Judy

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

the other way all the time.  A poolish or biga can take 12 to 24 hours depending on how much yeast you use and a SD levain can take 12 - 24 hours to build depending on how much starter (or left over levain) you use.  If you know how long each takes to be ready to bake a loaf of bread the switch is no worries.  You just won't get any sour out of the commercial yeast.

Happy baking