Hi folks!, I've been making loaves, for a few months already and I'm quite satisfied with my white bread so far(this is my way to start mastering the craft)although most of the people here are doing either whole wheat or multigrain with their formulas. My question is I would like to make a big batch of biga or poolish then retard them for future use but I don't know how to compute the ratio against the dough eg: let say i would like to use 500 grams flour as base for the dough so how many percent of biga or poolish should i use. I bet big bakeries have their pre ferments always available for their everyday use.  I hope my question does make sense and thanks for considering it. your help wil be highly appreciated.

I have just started a blog and I am looking for feedback on recipes and other people to try my recipes.  I will have lots of pictures and lots of recipes.  I use baker's percents and scale all of my ingredients.  So, if you are looking for recipes that follow the metric system look no further.  If you also have a blog I will gladly check it out and follow you.  Comments are always appreciated and fun to find.   

milwaukeecooking.blogspot.com

Hi

Reading Reinhart BBA etc. regarding Biga and Pate Fermentee (not so much Poolish) I noticed that the preparation of these preferments involve kneading and proofing much the same as you would for any final dough.

Since I presume neither gluten nor  trapping carbon dioxide, bulk/volume are major concerns for a preferment, why are these stages of kneading, proofing and degassing necessary in a preferment?   Is this something I also need to do with poolish? (I don't think I've ever successfully had a poolish 'double in volume' btw).