Loosing height in my poolish bakes
Hi all - New today to The Fresh Loaf. Enjoying it already.
I'm quite new to long fermentation bakes (building my way up from overnight rises to full sourdough starters bread by bread).
I'm following the recipes and techniques from Ken Forkish's Artisan Bakers book - which so far have been great. Learnt loads and getting good results.
Just looking for some advice about my poolish bakes.
I'm getting a good rise on my 14 hr overnight ferment and although it's a pretty wet dough, I'm getting a good amount of gas build up following the mix and folds. And then good rise during the final proof.
But regardless of what I try to get more tension into the dough (solid mix and three folds during the first hour of the rise) when I turn it out of the banneton it loses its shape and spreads.
It rises a bit in the oven and tastes delicious - but I get much more height from other methods.
Is this the case for Poolish breads? Or should I be able to retain the shape of my round banneton when I turn out?
Thanks!
Simon
Regardless of method, a well developed dough should be able to hold some sort of shape (well developed as in a good amount of gluten and strong gluten). If it's fine up up to proofing, fermentation (in this case the poolish) may have gone to long. This can destroy gluten, and gluten is what gives dough the ability to hold shape. Too much water will also have an effect as will an overly acidic starter, low protein flour, or just a change in the starter (if it's more active it'll need less time before things go south). Try lowering fermenting time, or lowering starter amount to keep closer to original timings. Good luck and Enjoy!
Over fermentation is probably the variable I hadn't considered. I'll give that a closer watch next time.
Thanks!
If, by "Ken Forkish's Artisan Bakers book", you meant "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast"...
On page 66 of FWSY, he says his overnight room temp is 65 F.
So elsewhere, when he gives a range of overnight room temps of 65 - 70, he really does mean an upper limit of 70.
On page 28, he says his daytime room temp is 70F.
So, most folks who have higher room temps than that in the warmer parts of the year, usually end up over-fermentng/proofing their dough if they follow his ferment/proof times exactly.
Therefore, when you can't match his temps, you have to compensate by using less starter in your levain, and/or less levain in your dough, and/or shorter ferment/proof times.
Good point. My kitchen has been very warm recently. Thanks for the tip.
I always looked at it like this, 5 degree F difference from the normal temp noticeable difference, 10, be ready for some big timing changes. Hotter faster, cooler slower that's the rule. Enjoy!