Recently I had the good fortune to be kept away from home for a few days (48 hrs) longer then I expected. I started a poolish and never came home. Is it still good? How long will it last? And how exactly do you pronounce it? Thanks to everyone, about everything. Baking has turned into a wonderful experience. Kevin

I want to make some of the recipes in DL's Local Breads, but I don't want to make his levain from scratch.  I have a great starter that works, do I need to start again with a Levain?

I'm sure this info is on this blog somewhere, but I couldn't find the exact answer I need.  Can someone tell me the difference between BARM/STARTER/LEVAIN/POOLISH/BIGA/PATE FERMENTE/STIFF LEVAIN?  Can you subsitute one for the other, or is one process that different from the other?  Are they basically the same thing, but merely two ways to do the same thing?

Confused.  Help would be great.

Thank you!

A week ago,  I bought my first rye and whole wheat flour, they were imported from Germany.  I could not understand a word on the description,  but I was determined to try my hand on these flour.  Here I am trying my first rye and whole wheat bread.  Honestly,  I have no idea what it is suppose to look like or taste like,  as I'm not a fan of rye bread usually,  I'm a white loaf freak.  Surprisingly,  this recipe is easy, and the taste is really good.  I still need to work on my shaping and proofing timing though.  

It;s a wet dough to work with,  I'm now aching all over from the kneading,  3 different types of kneading just to get dough ready.  Wish I have a machine to help me with.  I'm still waiting for my birthday present...

The taste is pretty good though,  seems like the poolish had helped with this outcome.  Is it suppose to look like that?  Unfortunately,  Barry's artisan did have any pictures of the dough he made, and I found many rye and whole wheat that are more dense.  Am I getting this right?

Jenny

Recipe Here:

Jenny's Blog on Poolish Rye and Whole Wheat Bread

I made beet bread last night.  The outer color was bright red but the crumb was a reddish brown.  The taste was great.  My only difficulty with it was a massive oven spring.  I thought that I had allowed it proof long enough.  It had doubled in size and when I pressed my finger to the side it held my print.  All signs pointed to proofed.  When I put it into the oven it nearly doubled again!  Everything about this bread was good except that it looked destroyed due to the crippling oven-spring.  Ideas?

I have pictures and the formula on my blog.  http://veggieinmilwaukee.wordpress.com

This was my kitchen sink recipe.  I accidentally made too much baguette dough so I decided to throw some of it in my banneton with a few added extras.  I had sun-dried tomatoes around and I had recently ground up some parmesan.  So, I thought, why not mix it into my extra dough.  Before putting it into the oven I spritzed it with water and gave it a sprinkling of cracked pepper.  Out of all the breads I have made this one actually made my mouth water when it was baking.  The smell was incredible.  Here is how I made it. 

Follow my poolish recipe for the dough.  I made 900 grams of dough for this recipe.

After the second rise lightly flatten out the dough into a square that is roughly 12"x12".  On one half of it sprinkle 1/4 cup ground parmesan cheese and then, on top of that, gently press in 1 cup of chopped sun-dried tomtatoes.  Leave 1/2 inch of dough around the edges so that you can seal it back up again.  Fold the empty side over the top of the tomatoes and press down on the edges to seal.  Flatten the dough slightly and business fold it into thirds (like you are mailing a business letter).  Let your dough rest for 5 min and business fold again.  I folded mine three times. 

At this point you should have a few layers of tomato and you will want to shape your dough into a boule.  You don't need a banneton for this because all of the folding and shaping has made your dough fairly tough and it will stand on its own.  However, let your boule rise for an hour, until doubled, before baking. 

Pre-heat the oven to 500F while your dough is rising.

Right before baking spritz your boule with water and top with pepper.  You need the pepper...trust me. 

 Spray the walls of your oven with water and bake for 2 minutes.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Turn the heat down to 425

Bake again for 20 min at 425.

Rotate your bread 180 degress and turn the heat down to 400 and bake for 20 min.  

Check the temp of your bread.  If the internal temperature isn't over 195 it isn't done.  The optimal temp is between 195 and 205. 

I wanted to take pictures of the crumb so you could see the tomato goodness inside but it got eaten before I could remember.  Next time I will post a picture of the crumb.  This is a recipe that I would like to re-create again. 

http://veggieinmilwaukee.wordpress.com

'Just tried to do a sourdough loaf with presoak and had it end up /very/ doughy. I've been learning for a few weeks now because most commercially-available breads are absolute garbage health-wise, and the good stuff (from the farmers' market or frozen at the natural foods -stores) runs a good $6-per loaf. I'm determined to learn and not afraid of making mistakes (as you'll soon learn.)

Anyway, trial went something like:

(36-hour 65°F to 70°F) presoak :
3c Bob's Red Mill Unbromated unbleached white
1/2c Hungarian high-altitude whole-wheat
1/4c whole-wheat germ
1 3/4 c low-fat buttermilk
1/2c low-fat yogurt

(12-hour 75°F) poolish :
1/16t Rapunzel Rize active dry yeast
1 1/2 c of presoak taken at its 24-hour mark

(20-min) proof :
poolish
2 1/2 T white granulated sugar (kneaded in)

final dough :
1/2t salt
2T cornstarch
15-minute knead
45-minute warmed rise
1T cornstarch
10-minute knead and frissage
1-minute stretch and fold
50-minute warmed rise

actual loaf :
30-minute preheated bake at 375 degrees F

Obviously I did a ton of things wrong. Mostly factors of timing, I felt. The reason I didn't do at least two more rises and a rest-period was because I was trying to get this ready for someone so they could have a few slices before they headed overseas for a few weeks. The dough itself had turned out well with quite a sharpness to it. The slices from the loaf were alright after being toasted for a bit. The crust turned out brown and very thin on top, and a bit thicker and paler on the bottom (like "German light rye" if you've ever been so lucky to've had it) and completely gorgeous; the dough had been too wet to really slash as it was going in, but it browned and split just slightly on its own during the bake. I'm kicking myself presently for not having taken a few photos.

So, since I'm not an optimist, but a utilitarian, I figure I can use the experience, and pose a few of the questions I came up with as the process went on. Questions follow:

Afterwards (after having sliced off maybe 1/5 of the shallow dome-shaped loaf) I lowered the oven-temperature to 200°F or 250°F and tried putting the bread back in for an hour or so but to no avail as the next slice came off close-to-as-doughy as the previous. I ended up cutting the whole thing into slices after that and leaving them in for maybe an hour after upping again to 300°F.
Q - Is there a reason bread seems to utterly refuse to bake after it's been sliced once?

Next... I know I could do a poolish simultaneously with the soak, but it occured to me...
Q - Is there such a thing as bread that's made entirely from poolish, or would such a loaf fall, or otherwise fail during baking?

I used cornstarch instead of normal flour during knreading because I wanted to minimize phytates that I'd get from adding dry flour back into the soaked mix.
Q - Do folks just use white flour to minimize phytates (because AP-flour generally doesn't have tons), or is there another flour (like potato-flour, or cornflour) or thing (like cornmeal) that is used for that?

Generally I end up with /very/ hydrated flour starting into adding the final ingredients, and kneading and so-on because I want to make sure everything's properly damp so my culture or acidic base can do its thing properly. Like I said, as I worked with the dough it was /very/ wet.
Q - Is there a standard method for adjusting for dough-hydration on the fly (keeping the above concerns about phytic acid in-mind)?
    Q - Will most doughs rise properly if not kept covered in order to help lower their moisture-content?
    Q - Should I just try sprouting my grains instead if I'm so paranoid about this stuff?

Finally, and you won't be quoted on this...
Q - Would a loaf with this amount of hydration ever rise and bake correctly?

I'm on a roll! (pun intended : )

I made an overnight poolish with KA bread flour, the final dough had 1/3 whole wheat flour. It was very a very stiff dough and I kneaded by hand until I was sweating.  Boiled about a minute per side in baking soda water.  The tops are nice but the bottoms are gnarly.  I need to study the shaping instructions per Reinhart and Hammelman.  I think I'm overcompensating for my early trys where everything slumped out flat.

My lovely wife requested the kitchen to bake holliday cookies tommorow so I still have to bake my sandwich rolls for lunch next week.  Made the dinner bread last night, the bagels are for her breakfast next week.

Since I returned from a class on the classic French breads at KAF I've been attempting to reproduce the quality of the bakes we accomplished there. Especially with baguettes where, with a still shaky scoring technique, I nonetheless managed to produce some decent looking grignes while there.

What I discovered at home, however, is that my gas oven is like a sieve when it comes to steam retention. I also found that my scoring techniques had regressed, if anything. The result has been bread with a wonderful crust that is crackly, and a crumb that, while a little tighter than it would be if my scoring was opening, has a wonderful flavor - particularly when using a poolish which imparts a nice nuttiness.

But on the whole, it's been frustrating. Until today. While my cuts are still sealing prematurely, and depriving the loaves of maximum spring, I finally accomplished gringes that actually look like they should, and which did allow the crumb to open up a bit more.

What happened? I think a combination of two things:

1) In attempting to holding my lame at a 30° angle to the top of the baguette, I think I've actually gone too close to horizontal, and the result's been a noticeable pulling of the dough. Today I approached from a steeper angle - probably closer to 45°, and the result was cleaner cuts. (You can see that my scoring was more successful on the bottom loaf than the top one). And I also made the slashes with more confidence and less hesitation. I kept thinking of Reinhart's injunction to his students to imagine slitting open an envelope.

2) I heavily misted the loaves just after scoring them, right before putting them into the oven. I used a cup and a half of boiling water poured into a cast iron pan in the bottom of the stove instead of the usual one. And finally, after one minute, I very briefly opened the oven and again misted the tops of the loaves.

Obviously I haven't totally solved the steaming issue, as my cuts didn't bloom to the degree I hoped. But for the first time I've got recognizable gringes.

It has me grinning along with the baguettes!

Larry

I cannot find what i want in the search box so.......... My question is can you convert any preferment,biga, poolish etc. to sd using a % conversion, Seems logical to me but I do make mistakes......... sometimes lol.

My thinking is that there are so many levels to this w/f/yeast thing!  Patrick from Modesto

I'm using a pate fermentee in a whole-wheat loaf made with 50% ww and 50% apf. I much prefer using a poolish and would like to switch over. The dough is fairly extensible now and I wouldn't want to increase it.

The pre-fermented flour percentage with the pate is 25%. Anyone have experience with this type of substitution?

Dave