How to Convey How Much of Your Dough Is Pre-Fermented?
I've seen it done a couple of ways and I was wondering if there is a right way to say how much of your dough is pre-fermented flour.
I've seen it calculated by taking the total weight of the flour and multiplying it by whatever percent of pre-fermented flour you want and that gets you your total weight of pre-ferment. So if my total flour weight was 1k and I wanted 30% pre-fermented flour I would get 300g.
I've also seen it calculated by taking the total amount of flour in the pre-ferment and dividing it by the total amount of flour in the dough. So if the total amount of flour in my pre-ferment is 150g and the total amount of flour in the dough is 1K I get 15%.
I know the two calculations will give you the correct answer for your pre-ferment values just in different ways but really I was just wondering how do you say how much of your dough is pre-fermented. In this example would I say I have 15% pre-fermented flour or 30% pre-fermented flour?
Thank you,
Tyler Teran
Crustworthy Bread
Akron, OH
Great question Tyler!
I don’t see a difference between the second and third paragraph examples. They are both correct, unless something obvious was missed. And with my brain that is a distinct possibility. LOL...
The description of the amount of levain in a formula is not uniformity adhered to and is therefore very confusing. I struggled with this very issue when in the process of building my spreadsheet. After much study, myself and my project partner (Leslie Ruf) decided to go with the standards set by the Bread Baking Guide of America (BBGA). For us it made the most sense.
The Percentage of Prefermented Flour (PPF) using the BBGA method is calculated as follows.
Example
Total Flour = 1000g
Total Water = 75%
PPF = 15%
If the levain is 100% hydrated
150g flour + 150g water
When the final dough is mixed
All of the 300g levain
850g flour
600g water
But many well known and excellent bakers do not use this calculation. You have to do some math when attempting to enter another baker’s formula into a spreadsheet. It is easy to mistakenly think that a 15% PFF in a kilo of flour is 150g in the levain and 1000g flour equating 1150 total flour. Some bakers think of a levain much like an ingredient. So, a 30% levain at 100% hydration will add 15% of the total flour and an equal amount of water to the weight of the total flour.
Example
Total flour = 1000
Hydration = 75%
30% Levain @ 100% hydration = 150 Flour + 150 Water
With this type of calculation, the total flour is 1150 and the total water 900.
The actual hydration is 78.3%, not 75%. This was one of the main considerations to use the BBGA method. It always gets the actual hydration correct. NOTE - 3% additional water makes a noticeable difference in the dough.
I hope this didn’t muddy the waters for you. But it is worth understanding. Too bad we can’t all get on the same page. I think most bakers on The Fresh Loaf adhere to the BBGA standards.
HTH,
Danny
Thank you for the reply! That makes sense to me.
CWB, Another point is being very precise in descriptions and labels of ingedients, especially starter/levain. And then giving total final weight.
This allows the reader to "do the math" so they can verify that what they think the formula author is doing is what the author is actually doing.
So far, in my blog posts, I usually try to "show the math", so the reader can follow along as to what exactly is going on.
Dan's spreadsheets are excellent in this respect as he labels both columns AND rows with good descriptions, and includes all sums and totals, so that you can verify which numbers go into the various totals, and which cells are used to calculate percentages,
Beginners are always showing up, so try to write for them. Never leave anything assumed. Always spell it out.
And, as we are an international bunch here, always specify F (Fahrenheit) or C (Celsius). And don't assume English is someone's primary language.
A _well written_ formula(recipe) is one where the reader cannot misunderstand.
Bon appétit, amigo.