I stopped using a poolish and still get great flavor
I've always used a poolish for my no knead bread recipe. It called for one cup of APF and 6 oz of water and 1/8 teaspoon of instant yeast. I would let it ferment over night and then mix it with 7 oz of bread flour, 2 oz semolina flour, 1-1/4 teaspoons of salt, 4 oz water, and another 1/8 teaspoon of yeast. I would let this triple in size (5-6 hours) and then refrigerate it overnight before baking.
This takes a long time but makes a great smelling and tasty loaf of bread.
One day I decided to just mix all the dry ingredients and add 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast and 10 oz of water. It takes about eight hours to rise, and still benefited from a night in the fridge, but it came out tasting the same as the bread made with the poolish. In a blind taste test, I don't think I could tell which was which. Others felt the same way.
This new method saves time and labor.
I suppose you could say, I was still making a poolish, except I was using all the ingredients in the recipe, instead of just a portion.
Any thoughts on this?
I've modified my no knead bread recipe [1] on The Fresh Loaf.
More pictures of the entire process are here [2].