50% Whole wheat Bread (The Frozen Biga Test)
In reference to the comment of TFL member : subfuscpersona, here [1], where SF thankfully shared his idea of Freezing a yeasted BIGA for future use; i have finally done the proposed method, with little deviations of my own.
The recipe was adapted from Peter Reinhart's (Transitional Multigrain Hearth bread).
Ingredients:
Soaker: 223g Bran + coarse whole Wheat middlings
(sifted remains of milled Wholewheat flour)
4g (1/2 tsp) Salt
173g water
-----------------------------------------
Total: 400 grams
Biga: 227g Bread flour 50 % wholewheat
1g (1/4tsp) Instant Dry Yeast 50% Prefermented Flour
142g water Total Hydration: 70%
------------------------------------------ Bulk Fermentation: 45 min.
Total: 370 grams Final Fermentation: 30-45 min @ 25c
Final Dough:
400g All Soaker
370g All Biga
9g (2 ¼ tsp) Instant Dry Yeast
8g (1 tsp) Salt
------------------------------------------
Total: 787 grams
Deviations where in mixing the White Biga , fermenting it at room temperature for 4 Hours until it doubled, then immediately freezing it. biga was frozen for three days, and thawed slowly in the refrigerator for another 24 hrs prior to baking day. Amusing, how convenient these Yeasted Bigas are!
Yesterday, 2 hours before mixing, i removed the thawed Biga from the refrigerator to allow it to come to room temperature. Mixing proceeded, and i did not notice any adverse effects of the freezing on the structure of the Biga. Mind you, it was a White Biga, I'am sure the same would apply for a wholewheat biga, too.
The Final dough developed very quickly, and was bulkfermented, preshped, shaped, and fermented in a banneton. I wanted to try Franko's recent scoring style: here [2], Nice!
Thanks to Subfuscpersona, for his Ideas...! my Freezer shall be packed with Bigas from now on... :)
khalid