Is there such thing as a Sourdough Preferment?
I live in Italy where there are tons of ancient types of wheat available which is all good except the fact that they are high in protein but low in gluten. This makes it challenging (at least for me) to make a bread that rises well (or at all). All of my attempts ended up with a bread pancake.
Since I'm baking only with sourdough and have never baked a bread with commercial yeast in my life, I've never considered biga or poolish useful to me but reading about positive aspects of a preferment I was curious if I can apply the same principle also for my sourdough bread made from weak ancient wheat flour (I really need every help that I can find to get the darn thing rise :D)
I stumbled upon this site (http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/index.php/recipes-how-to-make-sourdough-bread/breadmaking-techniques/preferments-for-sourdough [1]) which explains how to make a sourdough preferment. In short it goes like this:
• Mix all of the recipe's water, sourdough and 1/2 of the flour
• Let it ferment for 3 or more hours (depending on the temperature, but it should be ready when it has a lot of bubbles)
• Add the remaining 1/2 of the flour to the preferment, wait for 30 minutes, then add salt and proceed with the recipe
This is all good but this looks to me like a big liquid sourdough refreshed 3h prior to bread making and nothing more.
So my question is: Has anyone tried making a preferment like this and did it help in any way to strengthen the dough?
Thanks!