Hi,

This is my first post in this forum. I have been following it silently for quite a while and I was impressed with the quality of bread other forum members post here. I also recently bough a Kenwood Major KM020 and I wanted to try it out with a baguette dough.

While I have been living in Dublin for more than 10 years, I am originally from Italy, where there is a long artisan bread tradition, which means I am kind of found of good bread.

I followed the Hamelmann baguette with poolish recipe , with a final round shape

I must admit that I tried to do my best to get a good result

1) Poolish was 100% Flour, 100% Water, 0.2% Fresh yeast, 21 degree fermentation

2) Bulk fermentaion around 23-24 degree

This is a video of the poolish after 12hrs

However the final bread texture did not come up well, as you can see from this picture.

Dou you have any idea of what went wrong?

Many thanks

arguros

I am a beginner....! Thursday night I made a poolish so I could bake my first bread on Friday, leaving it out overnight. It turns out I cannot bake the bread until today (Saturday)...so I put the poolish in the refrigerator. It doesn't look the same anymore and is watery underneath the surface. Should I start over again, or can this be used. Sorry for the novice request! But I have my my shirtsleeves rolled up and ready to rock!

Earlier this week I had a dream about ham & cheese on baguette. Since this was a dream that I could turn into reality, I took up the task of making some baguettes. So many dreams just stay dreams, when you have one within reach: grab it.

I turned to Jeffery Hamelman’s book, Bread, and to an old bakery formula I had from years ago working as a baguette mixer at Red Hen. Pretty strait forward, poolish recipe. But how awesome simple formulas can be! To my delight these baguettes crackled, and tasted like butter and nuts and wheat. It was hard to bake them long enough because I kept wanting to pull them out of and eat them in one, huge bite. 

Dear Baguette,

I am sorry we were apart for so long. I took you for granted. One day you just weren’t there anymore. Maybe the separation did us both some good. I’ve moved a couple of times, have a new boyfriend, in general, things are progressing. But maybe we could think about spending some time together again. I really love the way you smell.

Yours Truly, Smoke Signals  

Greetings from Finland!

After years of reading your posts (and drooling over your tasty and beautiful loaves) for inspiration, I thought I'd start my own blog here too. During the days I'm a stay-at-home dad exploring life with my two boys (ages 4.6 and 2 :)). The rest of my time, mostly when my family is asleep, I try to split between baking, writing and some other creative experiments. And browsing The Fresh Loaf.

--

In the past summer, I managed to spoil my starter by not refreshing it during the summer vacation as we were traveling around Finland. Ever since, I have been making breads with yeast, procrastinating with the idea of training a new starter. The Ale and Yeast Poolish recipe from Richard Bertinet's Crust has become my current favorite bread.

Today, once again, I made a batch: I usually follow the recipe as printed, except that for baking, I use a cast-iron frying pan covered with a clay pot for the first twenty minutes -- my cheap version of a dutch oven. To fit the breads in the pan, I divide the dough in four pieces instead of the two instructed in the book, and shape the dough into boules instead of batards.

Here's how it looked this time:

What is the end difference between using a poolish, or portion of the dough fermented overnight, vs. letting the whole loaf sit overnight? In an Italian bread baking class I took the teacher leaves his whole batch just sitting overnight at room temp in a bucket.

Do you just get a stronger flavor that way?

Do the two methods affect texture?

C B Findlay

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.

this is an excellent article using purple cabbage of all things to make a great sourdough starter.  I plan to try it next time I'm at the store looking at cabbage!  found on ruhlman.com  .........................

http://ruhlman.com/2009/07/simple-sourdough-starter/

I've always used a poolish for my no knead bread recipe. It called for one cup of APF and 6 oz of water and 1/8 teaspoon of  instant yeast. I would let it ferment over night and then mix it with 7 oz of bread flour, 2 oz semolina flour, 1-1/4 teaspoons of salt, 4 oz water, and another 1/8 teaspoon of yeast. I would let this triple in size (5-6 hours) and then refrigerate it overnight before baking. 

This takes a long time but makes a great smelling and tasty loaf of bread.

One day I decided to just mix all the dry ingredients and add 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast and 10 oz of water. It takes about eight hours to rise, and still benefited from a night in the fridge, but it came out tasting the same as the bread made with the poolish. In a blind taste test, I don't think I could tell which was which. Others felt the same way.

This new method saves time and labor.

I suppose you could say, I was still making a poolish,  except I was using all the ingredients in the recipe, instead of just a portion.

Any thoughts on this? 

I've modified my no knead bread recipe on The Fresh Loaf.

More pictures of the entire process are here.

This is what I made for myself of all the things that I have learned so far.  I'm finding that there's a huge amount of information from various sources, all with spoon-fed amounts of usefulness.  So, here's my attempt to help others out there, whomever might actually find this.  Please note that my use of the word "yeast" means the brewer's instant yeast, and starter means the friendly creatures (or "the fish", as it is called in our home) that are cultivated from flour and water.  The numbered parts are all of the steps to actual bread making that I've found out.  I'm just now gleaning information about the preferment/poolish step (just learned a few weeks ago about the existence of such a step, and was relieved to find that "sponge" "poolish" "pate fermente" are all the same thing phew).  Here is basically what I've learned in the past four years:

EQUIPMENT    scale, oven peel/large spatula, unglazed quarry tiles or baking stone, measuring spoons/cups, bowls, wooden spoons, towels for bread, thin long stemmed thermometer to HIGH temperature

ABOUT STARTER

Not rigid method. Repeatedly successful recipes can fail.

Use variables to gain some control and predictability.

Variables include-- time, temperature, humidity, water quality, dough density/hydration

Use scientific method---only change one variable at a time

Starter bread characteristics:  large irregular holes, crumb, structure;  spreads, advantages (can make starter yourself, doesn't need extra food in the recipe, more room for creativity, ability to do more with texture and flavor, English Muffins, French bread), disadvantages (rise time less predictable, needs help to keep shape, needs to be tended and fed)

Starter eats flour, doesn’t eat sugar.  Any sugar in recipe you will end up eating yourself

Yeast bread characteristics—small crumb, regular small holes, less notable structure), tends to rise not spread, advantages (more predictable rise time, not need fed), disadvantages (cannot make yeast yourself, needs food added to recipe, flavor is entirely in the recipe--little creativity, has to be degassed)

MAKING STARTER

½ c whole grain flour with ¼ c water (equal weight).  Keep in glass or stainless steel with lid

Watch for life signs (bubbles) after 12 hours, if no signs for a few days, start over (check water quality)

Check the PH of your water---should be neutral or slightly acidic….basic is no good for starter. Add fruit juice or citric acid if needed

Feed when life signs, every 12 hours:  throw out ½ amount in there.  Put in exact same amount flour in there as in there already, plus ½ that in water (or equal weight of both)

*change container often*

Recommended stainless steel, glass, or glazed ceramic containers with lids (to keep bugs and children out, and moisture in)  starter reacts to most metals

After 3 days of consistent rising and falling, switch to white flour (to avoid bad critters)

Will smell like fish, should change to wheaty smell

After 1 week of consistent doubling, ok to use

Only use small amount of old starter to new starter (Tablespoon at most), keep discarding/baking—do not keep….ends up being a sponge not a starter

Note peak and fall times   starter:flour:water

Recommended 1:2:1 once a week feed fridge always, keeping Tablespoon amount or so

Once get good, can keep different teaspoon sized starters for each type of bread (CHEF)

More flavor=more time between feedings

1 PREPARE STARTER

Called preferment, sponge, poolish, bigas, levaine, pate fermentee (all the same)

Develops flavor, texture, lighter bigger air

More sour, more acid, longer shelf life

Note peak and fall times

Recommended 8-12 hours before dough mixing/kneading, 25% of total dough (so subtract from recipe flour and water used)

Add to bread at peak time

More starter % in bread, less proof time---acidity breaks down gluten

2 AUTOLYSE AND MIXING

Mix flour, water and poolish together, let rest five minutes or so (keeps from adding too much flour, and helps in kneading)

Most variable amounts are water and flour (coarse/fine ground flour, humidity, etc)

Set aside CHEF

Starter eats flour, doesn’t eat sugar.  Any sugar in recipe you will end up eating

oil--lending or not lending its flavor depends on recipe

Do NOT add salt directly to starter—mix in flour as a buffer first to keep starter alive

Do NOT use iodized salt—iodine becomes a gas in the oven—messes up your bread

3 KNEADING

-helps prevent too much flour being added--easier to add flour than water

-Palm push quarter turn only good for FLAT breads like pie crust, crackers

*Stretch&Fold:  adds air and builds structure—gluten sheath.  Also called French Kneading, or Slap Happy, etc.  Take the dough; slap the furthest side away from you down on the counter and away, while drawing the nearer side towards you.  Taking the nearer side in your palms (do not break, draw evenly like drafting wool) draw up and over further side, stretching sideways under and around, making a heart shape almost.  Make sure while you are drawing the dough over the further side to incorporate a nice big air bubble.  Turn the dough over and a quarter turn around (flip and turn like clockwise/counterclockwise).  Repeat.  Should change in feel and look—it will begin to pull dough off the counter and fingers.  Only dust the counter with flour if large pieces of dough are sticking—you want it to be tacky.  Shoot for 20 minutes of kneading. 

-Windowpane test—dough stretches between fingers fine enough to let light through without breaking

4 BULK FERMENTATION

Do not let ferment on pan---acidity tarnishes pans

Use oil to keep from sticking (using flour at this stage creates flour dumplings inside your bread)

Use heat during winter to help, especially in the North—direct heat ok at this step  70-90 degrees F optimal

Stretch and fold at least every thirty minutes to keep gluten structure from relaxing, and to distribute temperature evenly (fermentation heats up dough) S&F twice minimum during this stage

For smaller crumb, deflate while S&F

Bigger holes, keep as much air as possible

5 SHAPING AND PROOFING

This is the stage to choose your shape:  boule, baguette, loaf, braid, rolls, etc.  A shape doesn’t define a recipe, a recipe enhances the shape.  (good recipe, good rolls, etc)

Do not let proof on pan---acidity tarnishes pans

Starter spreads---need to use something to help.  Linen towels with flour method, proofing trays/counters, baskets heavily floured, etc.

use flour to keep from sticking--lightly

Do NOT use direct heat source (like oven light) to keep warm --creates a second crust that will not fill

Harder crust---use towel and let dry out to create a rind

Softer crust—let proof in moist environment (covered with bowl, etc)

More starter % in bread, less proof time---acidity breaks down gluten

Overproofing---when bread collapses---gluten stretched too far and cannot recover (make toast!)

Ready for oven:  when you poke it, it fills back your fingerprint but not all of the way

6 BAKING

Use flour on baking pan to keep bread from sticking (oil fries the bread and usually sticks)

Oven spring—put in already hot oven.  Oven high temp for 5 minutes, then lower temperature for optimal oven spring (example 450 degrees F, lower to 425 or 415)

Baking stone acts as heat sink to increase oven spring, can use unglazed quarry tiles---ALWAYS put into cold oven and let heat up and cool down with the oven (or break)

Slashing loaves a way to make the oven spring more predictable.  If bulges out near tray---temperature different in pan and air, etc.

Harder crust—spray dough with water right before putting in oven.  Do NOT steam oven directly if electronic---it will destroy oven entirely

Internal temperature 204 degrees F and above best indicator of doneness.  Cutting open stops the cool pressure cooker effect of the inside.  Thump test does NOT work.

If bread fell or didn’t bake well, make toast immediately

7 STORING

Sourdough:  Store in paper bag and bread cabinet if have one.  Fridge hastens going stale, Plastic keeps too much moisture

If bread contains milk products (milk, lots of butter or sourcream), or has a lot of moisture and sugar (cornbread or banana bread prime example of both), keep in fridge.  They only last about 2 days before going bad : (

Sourdough: make toast if going stale or out too long.  Bread should last for about 4 days, unless quick pour sugary breads like banana bread.

I'm new to TFL and would appreciate  some feedback on my 'wet preferment'.  After some research I discovered that yeast is its most regenerative after about 2 hours of activation. Later I pondered the reasons for a preferment and considered, why limit the yeast from its full potential.  This being the case I have made several batches of bread using a ‘wet preferment’.  I mix the sugar I intend to use (for a 900g flour dough I use upwards of 100g of sugar) in all the water I will use (550ml). I do this with boiling hot water in a large basin. When it has cooled to body heat I add 25g of dried yeast, whisk and wait 5 or 10 minutes.  Then I add 200g of flour , whisk again and cover tightly with film.  The result is a great deal of activity.  I leave this for at least 2 hours, then I put the rest of my flour (700g) and salt into the basin to make my dough.  My bread comes out with medium sized cells and very light.

Is this a new concept or have I just stumbled onto an ancient recipe? Please let me have your comments.

Bytchy.