November 1, 2015 - 8:49am
Is this preferment a 'Sponge' or a 'Poolish' ?
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Is this preferment a 'Sponge' or a 'Poolish' ?
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The Fresh Loaf
A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.
I think you fill find many opinions on that question. I personally think the post has it right it is a preferment. There are not percentages agreed to on what makes it any specific name. If it is important you can take one any of the current authorities say and run with that. I often see a poolish as 100% hydration and a sponge as less, in which case this would be a sponge.
This is a sponge, stiff preferment. You can see it both from the proportions of flour to water (16oz flour to 9oz water) and from the description in the text, where it says:
"Chop the pre-ferment up into small pieces"
Poolish is liquid preferment, it has flowing consistency.You won't be able to chop poolish into pieces :)
Thanks guys, I was just curious. It really does not matter as whatever it is, it has given me the best results with my bread so far, and so I shall continue with it!
Yes it really doesn't matter. I just happened to stumble upon this definition while looking for something else - notice the synonym. I know people that learned from grandparents about a poolish that was thick. The words mean very little.
Noun(- a mixture of flour and water with a little yeast; used to make some forms of dough
Synonyms* pre-ferment * sponge * bread starter ----Can mean a number of things. A poolish is a preferment. A biga is another. A starter is also a type of preferment. I think a sponge can be called a preferment. Interchangeable I think.
Exactly they are all preferments.
Neither really. A poolish would have had water and flour in equal amounts. A sponge, in a traditional sense, is a relatively soft preferment in 70-80% hydration range.
You could also call it i a biga :)
ETA: For the record, Hamelman just called it a pre-ferment in the recipe. But for the Pain Rustique he calls the 100% hydration pre-ferment a "poolish".
of 50-60% hydration or so, Sponge - an English word for medium hydration pre-ferments of around 70-80% hydration. Poolish a French word for a liquid preferment of 100% hydration or more. Is there any wonder why people are confused? Americans including Canadians who are just colder Americans, who aren't tied to so much regulation of everything, can use them any way we want or suits us at the time and still be completely correct or incorrect - no worries:-)
I personally think these 3 terms should only be used for commercial yeast pre-ferments only and not for sourdough pre-ferments - which are classified as stiff or liquid sourdough preferment with a qualifier for what kind of flour they are made with, white, whole grain, multi-grain, rye etc.
As a libertarian on most things, I really don't care what bread folks around the world do though. Confusion is always way better than tyranny :-) Still, words do have meanings that we global bread folks (GBF's) should be able to agree on....... or confusion will reign supreme!
Happy baking
We love regulations on every part of our lives, or at least we have them. The biggest difference between the U.S. and Canada is that Socialism isn't a dirty word in Canada.
Gerhard
Canada just like here, it just that half the people in both places think there isn't any socialism anywhere to be found and, even if there was, they would call it something else like democratic progressiveness.:-) When something gets a bad name they just change the name.... rather than the belief that is the real problem. When people can vote for their own pay chedk paid for by someone else - they will every time. Sadly too many on the take and not enough on the make anymore. But you are right, we too have regulations for everything it seems.coming out of DC but we just ignore them mostly hopoing they are more insane thoughts than deeds :-)
Oddly the many Canadian Snow Birds we have in AZ are fewer and farther between this year. Seems that the houses they bought here in 2008-2010 when real estate really crashed here, have gone up in price so much that they sold them for huge profits as the commodities crash in Canada made the economy pretty tough there. Turned out to b a nice windfall at the right time. Now they have no place to stay for the winter. - That has to be real cold no matter how you slice it., .
that bet. We just voted in a Liberal government that is promising to spend to the extent that we will run 5 consecutive deficit budgets, higher taxes and all the other good stuff. I don't think those kind of promises would win an election in the U.S.
Gerhard
P.S. I voted Liberal
presidential elections here by very wide margins, Long ago there used to be a difference between liberals and socialist in the USA but no more. We will have doubled our national debt in 8 years - spending like crazy. We are sadly, way ahead of Canada in that regard.
Greece went bankrupt owing less than $40,000 per person in national debt. If you include all the illegal aliens in the the USA mix , we owe $60,000 per person.. When 50% more than Greece. The only difference is that we can print money in dollars, as much as we want or need to pay it off the debt - no matter how large it gets. The Greeks couldn't print Euros so they were toast.
What happens when you print money? I'ts value goes down - a real lesson that more is less. Sadly, only 50% of the population pays the taxes here - the taxes that pay off the debt so.... the rest that do pay taxes really owe $120,000 each. The recession has been over for more than 5 years but interest rates are still zero, normally they would be at 6% by now. Why is that? Well..... we spend over $200 Billion a year just for interest on the national debt and that is after 7 years of zero interest rates.,
If interest rates rise, say to a lower than average 4-5% over the next 5 years, interest payments go to $600 a year. by the time the interest payments hit $800 billion year, outstripping both defense and discretionary spending by 2025( and only 10 years from now), Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending will more than double from $2 trillion to $4 trillion a year and the unfunded liabilities for these programs will grow to nearly $100 trillion. We will be toast for sure but still have hope that the people in Canada aren't as stupid as we are....... just remember there won't be anywhere to hide.
But this is supposed to be about bread ........So bake that bread as Rome begins to burn! Thankfully, Lucy is our only hope:-)
Well guys, actually, the topic of this thread is: 'Is this preferment a 'Sponge' or a 'Poolish' ?' And it is a 'Bread' making forum. So, I am sorry to be a 'killjoy' but perhaps it might be better if you took your issues to a forum more relevant to your issues ??