Pre-Ferment - Increase overall hydration?
Hey, TFL! First post in a while. Still exercising my sourdough starter, just not posting much. I recently made a change to my process, though, and wanted to get some input.... I'm still using the 1-2-3 formulation (150g starter for my standard loaf), but have recently begun doing a pre-ferment. So my formula for a single loaf would be as follows:
Feed/build WW starter to 150g (usually three builds for me)
For pre-ferment, combine all of starter, 50g AP flour, and 100g water - ferment for about 12 hours
For final dough, combine all of pre-ferment, 400g AP flour, 125g water, autolyse, add salt, etc, etc.
The major difference that I have noticed is in the perceived hydration of the dough once I bring it together. It seems much drier. My two guesses as to why are (1) the flour in the pre-ferment has much more time to soak up the moisture, so the mix of the final dough seems drier, and (2) moisture evaporates during the 12-hour preferment (I have my doubts on this one as I keep my bowl tightly covered in this phase, so not sure how much evaporation is really going on.
Given that my dough seems much drier throughout the mix, slap fold, proof, shape process, would it be reasonable to just increase the amount of water that I'm using? Say by about 5%? That would only be 15g water per loaf, and would bring my hydration from 71% to 74%.
I have been very pleased with the loaves I have made using a pre-ferment, so maybe I shouldn't change anything.....but what would the fun be in that?!? :) The attached picture is the last couple of loaves that I made with this method. I didn't get a crumb shot, but was pleased with the openness of the crumb, and the flavor is just where I like it.
As always, thanks for your input, and bake on!
Rich
If you're using the 1-2-3 method and your starter is 150g then water would be 300g and flour would be 450g.
Providing your starter is 100% hydration then the dough would be 71%
Abe, sorry if I wasn't clear. Yes, my basic dough formulation is 1-2-3:
150g WW starter @ 100%
300g Water
450g AP flour
Previously, I would build my starter, mix in the water, then mix that into my flour. I would bring the dough together, autolyse for 30 minutes, then do S/F on 30 minute intervals for about 1.5 hours. Bulk ferment for another hour or so (unless retarding in the fridge), shape, proof, bake.....
I have changed up my process recently, and am using a pre-ferment. So, I'm combining 150g starter, 100g of my water, and 50g of my AP flour, which I'm allowing to ferment for about 12 hours. Then I combine the pre-ferment with my remaining flour and water to bring the dough together. When I use this process, the dough is considerably "drier" to the touch. It feels like a much lower hydration dough than normal, feeling almost "tough" as I go through the process of mix, autolyse, s/f, etc.
So, my thought was that perhaps I need to increase my hydration by some % when using a pre-ferment like this to maintain a similar dough feel, and resulting loaf (the loaves I have made with this method have exhibited a bit tighter crumb, that is also a bit drier than my non-pre-ferment method.
Let me know what you think. Hopefully, I've made my process and question clearer! :) Thanks for taking a look, and for your input!
Rich
A pre-ferment (in sourdough) becomes your Starter when added to the final dough. When I use a "pre-ferment" in my sourdough i'm really just building enough "Starter" to add in to my dough.
I don't keep a lot of starter at any one time. so every time I bake the night before i'll take off a little starter and build a preferment which then becomes the starter within the recipe.
What are you trying to accomplish here? If you want, and mean, by a pre-ferment is that it should be "mature and active" before going into the dough then simply build a 150g pre-ferment.
Your final recipe reads like this...
300g starter @ 140% hydration
200g water
400g flour
It shouldn't be drier. Although the final hydration is the same more of it is pre-fermented and I would think it would feel less "together" and like higher hydration dough.
To understand this another way... What's the difference if you feed your starter and take some off to use in your bread or take some off and build a preferment?
Actually your "mother Starter" is more correctly called "Levain" and what goes into the dough becomes the "Starter".
It seems that I'm not using the terminology correctly, so sorry for any confusion there.
I think I just had a "smack on the forehead" moment here that may be the underlying difference that I'm noticing. Previously, I was feeding my starter AP flour (KA), but I recently switched to feeding it WW flour. The result of this change is that I have increased the % of WW flour in my standard loaf formulation without really thinking about it. To make it clear what I've done, here are the two formulations:
OLD FORMULA
150g starter @ 100% (AP flour)
300g water
450g flour (400g AP flour, 50g WW flour)
10g salt
NEW FORMULA
150g starter (WW flour)
300g water
450g flour (AP flour)
10g salt
* For the sake of comparison, I have not incorporated the "new process" with the 300g starter @ 140% hydration, as the amounts of ingredients and resulting math on hydration are the same....
So, my WW flour has increased from 50g in the original formulation to 75g in the new formulation -- or, from 9.5% to 14.3% of the total flour in the dough. I'm guessing that it is THIS change that has resulted in a drier feeling dough, and not my process on how I build the starter at all.
Think I'm on the right track now? I'm feeling a bit sheepish.... ;)
Rich
But just to be sure... It's not a 1:2:3 formula anymore. Your 2nd way is not 150g of starter.
....I got that. The math is the same (hydration and ingredient-wise), but not 1-2-3.
Thanks for the help, Abe!
Rich
I didn't notice the Wholewheat! And I wanted to, but forgot to, say... Lovely loaves!!
When I first read your original question, it appeared to me that you are not using as much water in the preferment version as you were in the original.
you wrote:
Feed/build WW starter to 150g (usually three builds for me)
For pre-ferment, combine all of starter, 50g AP flour, and 100g water - ferment for about 12 hours
For final dough, combine all of pre-ferment, 400g AP flour, 125g water, autolyse, add salt, etc, etc.
... But, isn't that only 225 g water total, instead of the 300g you would need for it to be 1-2-3 (the starter is the same in both cases)? That would account for it being too dry, wouldn't it?
I'm totally new at this, having only tried 4 sourdough breads thus far, spread out at 1 loaf a week, and each has been 'a failure'. However, I am trying to learn.
Gremlins ate my post. Did you get it as an email? If not did anybody else who can repost it for me?
Nikik-
In the passage you quoted, there is 75g water in the initial 150g starter, 100g in my "pre-ferment" (which Abe has rightly corrected me is more accurately labelled a starter), and another 125g in the final dough. All totaled, it's 300g.
I had many failures when I began, too, so keep at it. I'm three years in, and my failures are few and far between (and, what I consider a failure is much better than it used to be!) :)
Rich
A starter is a preferment. Or in other words the preferment becomes the starter when it goes into the dough ;)
Nikik is astute.
Original formula contains 375g of water not 300g!
We know that. And so does the new. There is water in the starter.
"Pre-ferment" - 150g starter (75g water) + 50 AP flour + 100g water.
Final dough - 400g AP flour + 125g water
75+100+125 = 300g not 375!
According to Rich the new formula contains 300g of water! Original has 375G!
At least I took it to be a typo as in my formula breakdown.
I understood it to be... he took 50g of flour from the 450g and 100g water from the 300g and added that to the 150g starter as a preferment. Then in the final Dough just added the remainder! (as in the explanation)
But of course if it isn't a typo then the hydration is different.
....I really messed this one up, didn't i?!?! :)
Yep, typo. Suffice it to say that either way I processed the ingredients (i.e. 150g starter @ 100% or 300g starter at 140%), the total amount of the ingredients in both formulas was the same, resulting in the same 71% hydration.
If I hadn't spaced out on the fact that I'd switched from AP to WW flour to feed the starter, I could have saved my confusion, and, everyone else's via this thread!! ;)
....can't even chalk it up to posting while inebriated! Ugh! ;)
Rich
So you didn't add 125g water in the final dough? But 200g?
your starter and then building it bigger with more flour and water. Nothing wrong with that. Adding WW to the mix will make the dough drier and it will require more water to feel the same since WW is more thirsty. 71% is for a white flour 1,2,3
Your bread looks great on the outside!
Happy baking
Thanks, dabrownman. I'm pretty sure that all math and terminology aside, I just forgot that I had changed the WW content, and, thus changing the feel of the dough. The bread tastes great, so no worries there.....just need to pay more attention to the formula next time (I am a History major, and Math was never my strong suit!) ;)
Rich
I think you made some errors either in typing your ingredient amounts or in your calculations. Here is how I read your original post:
Your basic “1-2-3” formula:
150g 100% hydration starter = 75g Water, 75g Flour
+
300g Water + 450g Flour
Total: 375g Water + 525g Flour = 71% hydration
———————————————————————————————————
Your formula with “preferment” (that is really just another starter build):
150g 100% hydration starter = 75g Water, 75g Flour
+
100g Water + 50g Flour
Subtotal: 175g Water + 125g Flour = 140% hydration
+
125g Water + 400g Flour
Total: 300g Water + 525g Flour = 57% hydration
So, if you typed the quantities correctly, your version with the extra build is 57% hydration rather than 71%. I certainly should seem drier! I think any difference in the flours you used is relatively minor.
And as far as the "1-2-3" issue goes, your ratio is now 300g starter + 125g Water + 400g Flour.
David
...that I never posted this?!? :)
As it happens, when I baked my last two loaves, I was using a bread formula spreadsheet that I made so that I could easily scale my 1-2-3, calculating different amounts of different flour, etc. I'm guessing that most of you will know where this is going.....yep, formula error in my spreadsheet.
David (and others above) you are dead on correct......my last loaves were indeed 57% hydration. Oops. :(
The only silver lining that I can find (other than the fact that the bread is mighty tasty) is that I at least noticed the difference in the dough. :)
Ok, so, that concludes this silly interlude for the day!! :) Thanks for chiming in, everyone!
Rich (even more sheepish now!)
It can happen that after the preferment is fully hydrated and one adds the rest water and flour, that the dough will feel drier. This is because part of the dough is fully hydrated (it got to the available water first) and the newly added flour is not, letting the dough stand a while to even out the flour particles doesn't always work like math does. So to answer the original question, yes, add water to get the dough feel you desire.
This technique can also be used to save on flour. I also think there is more information under "double hydration" doughs where steadily increasing the preferment is used to raise hydration and still have a manageable dough.
I myself soak total flour and water (Vienna dough) overnight to yeast and salt in the morning or whenever but often the dough is so fully hydrated, desolving the yeast becomes a problem, so I add extra water to the yeast to make a slurry or mist the flattened out dough and sprinkle on the yeast. The point being that the available recipe water is already locked into the gluten matrix. I'm working with an AP wheat flour that I soak at 70% hydration and still add some water to correct dough feel So it acts more like 60%. No evaporation involved.
I'm with Mini on this one - I think all the pre-fermenting has developed the dough to the point where it feels 'tougher' (as you said in one of your earlier posts on this), not really 'drier'.
I made a bread a while back where I was so busy getting the temperature of the water right that I totally forgot to weigh it when I poured it into the flour. I wasn't going to waste all that flour and start over again, so I just mixed it, adding a bit of flour and/or water, until it felt right. That was a revelation! It turned out to be very nice bread, after adding some yeast and salt (at least I knew the general amount of the original flour so could calculate the yeast and salt). Sometimes you gotta close your eyes and use the Force...
It's easy to slip up when creating a baker's math calculator, especially with sourdough.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P7RBFZle75Enp2dmxX3vPFXCiq0cphXtMnkGUiwdkoY/edit#gid=0