A Big(a) Controversy
A few years ago, I made Abel's excellent 90% biga loaf recipe, and it turned out really well. There's some pictures of my bake in that long thread.
I've made the same or similar biga based loaves since and they've never been as good - in terms of crust, ears, loft and crumb. What I've come to realise is that in my original loaf I made the biga the wrong way After that I read some more about bigas and started making the biga the right way
I define the wrong way as mixing the biga to a single cohesive lump (but without gluten development) and storing it as such. This can be done, even at 45% hydration, at least in a spiral mixer.
I define the right way as mixing for a shorter time, just to get those barely hydrated shreds, often with some dry flour left.
After mixing I stored the biga for 24 hours at 11-12C prior to use, so somewhat colder than a normal biga, which would be 16-18C.
In conclusion I think that mixing the biga "incorrectly" actually gives me better results than the proper method and I will continue to make it this way. Here's a picture of todays loaf:
Lance
Am intrigued by your results; your photo looks excellent. Good authors and teachers such as Hamelman have written that gluten development is NOT the goal in creating a biga. He also gives guidelines for matching yeast to time for biga development. I saw that the referenced recipe called for 3 grams of yeast. Renowned bakers such as Claus Meyer never use more than 2 g for a kilogram of flour.
Is it possible your biga succeeded at a colder temperature because of the dosage of yeast? Have you experimented with lesser amounts of yeast? Could a reduction in dosage yield the same results at 16-18C?
Hard not to commend your results, but there is usually more than one good method. Please let us know if you find the right dosage of yeast to deliver the same results at 16-18C and enjoy all your efforts.
My understanding of the biga is that, classically, it is always made with 1% fresh fresh yeast, so 0.33% or 0.4% idy, depending on your preferred fresh to instant conversion factor. See Giorilli's article here (in Italian). Michael Wilson, our own Italian baking expert, concurs: https://staffoflife.wordpress.com/biga/
I agree about not developing the gluten - I made sure that I didn't mix long enough to do that. My point is that I believe I am making better biga loaves by mixing to that single cohesive mass, rather than the supposedly correct "shreds".
The temperature may well be a factor and of course others may get different results to me. And 12C is an "in between" temperature, not always easy to maintain in the summer.
Lance
Lance, reading your post made me think how beneficial this forum is. You went off the reservation and went against the tide. Maybe you stumbled upon something that was not known before.
When such a large number of avid bakers, each working independently in their homes all around the world, innovation is inevitable.
God Bless the rebels and those that dare to think outside the box.
Danny
BTW -
That is one gorgeous bread you’ve got there...
Even though dark loaves are in vogue, I can’t imagine a more beautiful color than that one. You’ve captured my ideal.
Thank you Danny. I was looking at biga preparation on Youtube and it is interesting to watch a recent video from Giorilli. His biga isn't completely a cohesive mass, but it's certainly closer to one than the "shreds".
Lance
I had always done the cohesive mass--years of working with Jeffrey led me to define a good Biga as a stiff preferment (mid 50s for hydration). But then I worked with Ezio Marinato and watched him make his "vera Biga" which resembled something like cheese curds with even some loose flour.
Great bread can be made both ways and I have no doubt that in Italy there is great variance on this item. The one thing that I will say is that the curd-like Biga had an aroma which was decisively different than what I have come to know over many years and thousands of sniffs of Jeffrey's biga formulation.
Celebrating the differences,
Martin@KABC
A new member here. This is my introductions post
As you will see from my introductions post, what gave the confidence to start posting were some experiments with biga that have taken my sourdough to the next level, so I thought I would share here as they relate to the previous posts and may provide some further support for how to use biga most effectively.
I had dabbled with biga using commercial yeast, with OK, if unremarkable results. What motivated my latest biga experiments was a YouTube pizza-making video using a combination of poolish and biga which made me think of using a combination of my usual 100% hydration levain and a biga, both using my sourdough starter.
I had been wanting to try a biga using my sourdough starter instead of commercial yeast for a while, but reading various posts here on FL about it and people reporting unconvincing results, I was reluctant, so the idea of combining both the liquid levain and biga gave me confidence to do it.
The loaf I had in mind was 25% wholegrain rye, half of which I would use in the levain to feed the starter, and then 12.5% of white spelt which I was going to use entirely for a 50% hydration biga. The remainder of the flour was strong white flour (12% protein) and the overall hydration of the loaf 70%.
The reason for using the spelt for the biga was an Italian article (our family has connections there) about how biga had been developed when flour quality was not as uniform and bakers came up with ways of developing good gluten structure for loafs even if the flour used was not always as strong as necessary. So, going with my experience of spelt, where loaf formation is more difficult due to the gliadin, I wanted to see if the biga approach might conserve more of the spelt gluten and make for a more shapable loaf.
This view of biga as a method for dealing with weaker flour contradicted other readings, also here, about only using very strong flour for biga 'because the gluten has to survive a long fermentation. What I observed was that those advocating strong flour for biga were using what albacore here describes as the 'wrong' way of doing biga, which involved mixing it into a "single cohesive lump". My thinking was that, even if not fully forming the gluten, the single cohesive mass had much more gluten formation than what albacore describes as the 'right' way of mixing the biga "for a shorter time, just to get those barely hydrated shreds, often with some dry flour left". This also chimed with various pizzaiolos I had seen and spoken to in Italy who simply dissolved the yeast in a big sealable plastic tray with the 45-50% of water for the biga and then added the flour and simply swayed the tray side-to-side and backwards and forwards till the flour and water were very roughly incorporated and then used their fingers to gently mix up the flour and water a little more in a way that reminded me of how my mum used to make the crumble topping for apple crumble. The parts of the flour for the biga that were hydrated would be like very rough strands or the crumbs for crumble, with plenty of uncombined flour around so they don't stick and coalesce into clumps. It reminded me of the way one makes the batter for tempura mixing only with the chopsticks so I used chopsticks for the mixing which worked really well.
Once loosely combined in this way, I left the biga covered in a shallow square Tupperware type container I used for the mixing for about 24h at room temp. (around 19C) until the hydrated clumps got a slightly puffy and shiny and the mixture had a pleasant sour yeasty smell and then combined with the liquid wholegrain rye levain and other ingredients and proceeded to bulk fermentation with a number of stretch and folds.
The first thing I noticed was how quickly the bulk fermentation was progressing. The speed was what one would normally expect from commercial yeast, even instant yeast. It was going so quickly that I was not able to do the number of stretch and folds I was planning to do based on my liquid levain experience.
This then links to the second noticeable thing, which was how, despite fewer S&Fs, the gluten structure was much stronger than would have been with my liquid levain enabling a very comfortable final shaping, proofing, and transfer to dutch oven.
The bake was amazing! Superb smell, masses of oven spring, lovely 'ear' and crust. Lovely crumb when cut, and lovely taste and texture. Without doubt the best sourdough loaf of my 2+ years of baking.
Encouraged by the result, I decided for the next bake to go full-out with the biga and go for a 50% white spelt sourdough starter biga loaf with the rest strong white and no liquid levain. The sourdough starter (100% hydration) weight I used was 10% of the biga flour weight.
Previous spelt loafs had rise, but would spread out and be a little more flat than round when shaped as boules, so I was curious to see if these would hold their shape better. I added a small amount of diastatic malt powder as well, as the only slight blip in the experiment was that the crust was a little pale and I had noticed that pizza makers using biga would also add a little malt.
The BF was as fast, if not even faster than the first experiment combining both preferments. The structure and shaping just as easy and satisfying. Final shaping and proofing also trouble free and baking even more fragrant and with greater oven rise than experiment 1. Lovely crust as well this time with the malt powder.
The loaf was at a different level, even from the previous one in the experiment, in terms of texture, taste, crumb openness, colour and crunchiness of crust, oven rise etc.
So, all in all, I highly recommend this method of sourdough starter biga. Without doubt these are the best loafs I have made so far and the strength it gave the spelt and the speed it gives the BF are also very good. Mixing the biga is so easy and leaving it to do its own thing is also very convenient. It can also be left longer than 24h in the fridge. And being able to go from making the final dough to baking in a few hours is really handy. I am also very happy to finally have found a way of making such nice and well-formed loafs with a high spelt content as it makes a lovely tasting bread.
One final point. It seems many bakers who use biga also add diastatic malt to the BF. I concur with that. My feeling is that because the biga turbocharges the fermentation process, it uses up very fast the available sugars so it is necessary to make sure there is plenty of fuel for the bread to keep the right amount of sugars.
I hope this is useful to others and apologies for the long and maybe convoluted post. I have some photos of the loafs and can provide more details of the recipes if there is any interest.
RR
When you use it again, would you be so kind as to photograph the various steps so that we can see how things look along the way?
Thank you,
Paul
Of course, although I am slightly struggling to figure out how to get the photos of the loafs I wrote about in the posts at the moment :-/
About pictures, the bar of icons above the text box where you write your post has an icon "Media Browser" at its very right. Click that, then click "Choose File" and navigate to your picture file. When you have selected it, click on "Upload File". After that there are a few more selections to be made.
The image file has to be smaller than 2 MB, so you may have to resample your image first. There are several ways to do that in case you don't know yet.
Pro tip - before you insert a picture, hit the Enter key several times, then arrow up a few lines back to where you meant to put the picture. This makes sure that there will be a few blank lines after the picture that you can continue to type into.
TomP
Many thanks Tom
Helped get the photos up.
RR
I thought I would post the pics in real time as I make the next loaf.
This is day 1 (today), midday, having mixed up 200g of white spelt flour with 90g of water and 20g of liquid sourdough starter (100% hydration), unfed.
Actually, only had 180g of white spelt and so added 20g of wholegrain rye too.
It was a very firm paste . What are you expecting the dried crumble to do over the next 24 hrs ?
My next question is what’s the difference between a SD biga and a stiff levain?
Your biga is WAY drier and much much less starter per flour/water than I saw when researching. I’m completely intrigued now. Thank you for your documentation. c
What I am expecting now is for the hydrated shreds to start getting a little darker at first, the smell changing from floury/powdery to more yeasty/sour, and then, after the 24hs have passed, the shreds to have grown a little plump and shiny and the smell to have become more sour/yeasty, but in a really nice fresh way, as if you have the smell of your sourdough starter from the fridge when you open it, but somehow with hints of fresh cut grass and spring/flowers. Difficult to explain exactly. It is a very unique smell.
The main difference with the stiff levain, I think, would be that with these shaggy strands there is strong fermentation but virtually zero gluten, so what gluten you have in the flour is not already being degraded by the LAB. So when it comes to the bulk ferment, the gluten, even if not very much, is still there to strengthen the structure of the final dough and because the fermentation is strong, it does not spend so much time with the LAB getting degraded. That's my explanation to myself anyway.
The amount of starter you use depends on how long you want the biga to take to reach maturity. More starter (or commercial yeast) --> less time to maturity --> less character/flavour. With CY, the pizza makers I spoke to would use fresh yeast at a proportion of 1% of the weight of the full biga flour for a 24h biga at about 20C. The amount is tiny, which shows how this process amplifies the fermentation. Then I read someone had extrapolated from that, that 1% of commercial fresh yeast would be around 10% of 100% hydration sourdough starter and I used that for the experiment and it worked OK, so happy to stay with it.
Did you get that amount of starter mixed into the flour water ? I see the tiny clumps. A fork or dough whisk? I’ll give it a try . Thank you. This is all new territory and the info you read was obviously different. Glad to be learning something new.
I dissolved the 20g of SD starter into the 90g of water, then sprinkled the 200g of flour on top of the water, swayed the container backwards and forwards and side to side to get as much of the flour in touch with the water and then very very roughly used the chopstick to mix the flour and water around till these strands started to form, scraping the walls and bottom but leaving loose flour around too.
Mechanically you need to be avoiding anything that creates gluten. The opposite of when you are making the final dough.
A fork would be better than a dough whisk I think. I use the chopsticks because I had already used them when making tempura batter where you are again trying to avoid forming gluten and I thought it would also work in this case.
Going to follow your directions and see what I get. Thank you !
Directions followed and it “ worked a treat”!. I think this looks mostly like yours. Let me know what you think. . Anyway will see what happens by tomorrow.
Very similar to making biscuit dough (scones, for the unenlightened UK :) ), I think. I use a fork and a whisk would be a poor choice - and hard to clean.
TomP
Yes, I got the biscuits/scones thing when I was over in the US the last time! I was always wondering why people were having biscuits with their meals over there, then saw them and realized they were scones!
I think you want to avoid gluten formation when making them as well, so same idea with mixing the biga in this way. If a fork works for scones, then it would be best in this case too.
I posted an initial pic of the biga after I made it. It will be 24 hr old in 4 hrs. It has a pleasant fragrance but
i don't note any "wet" areas ,it does look puffier. I think because I used ALL rye for the 200 grams in the biga that it could have used more water as it was home milled the day before . We shall see. I'll continue after you post pics and the next steps. thank you c
Apologies for the late post. Very busy day today, so had to abandon the biga in the fridge in the morning so lost some of the puffiness of the strands. But you get an idea of how it has become more moist now. The smell was tending towards slightly more sour than last time, probably because I have left it for more than 24h , even if in the fridge. I have left it there for tonight and will use it for the final dough tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed its not over fermented.
Your picture looks alright to me, but don't be rushed to use it if it is not a bit more mature, moist and puffy. That slightly glistening shine of some of the strands in my photo below is a sign it is becoming ready. And the smell. If you are getting the smell, that is a good sign you are on your way.
My picture is the before . I didn’t take a picture after 24 hrs. It’s covered in the fridge now. How much levain will I need for tomorrow? I need to feed some up from my stored starter.
What loaf did you have in mind to make?
I am trying to repeat the 2nd one from the experiment to ensure that the previous one was not a fluke. So was going to simply mix the entire quantity of the biga (what is visible in the photos: 200g flour, 20g SD starter, 90g water), with the rest of the ingredients of the loaf. 180g strong white, 4g salt, 20g chia seeds fully hydrated, and 147g water. No further levain added. Just the biga.
Except the seeds. I can’t eat seeds. Thank you!
for not having the seeds then. Both the flour to add and the water to get the hydration you are wanting to use. Mine is 65% which worked well with the spelt the previous time.
I will do that and the fact that I am using all rye for the biga and a hard white wheat that I will mill tomorrow. I always go by feel . Excited to try something outside my usual. c
So, all mixed up with the final ingredients (200g strong white, 1/2tsp homemade spelt malt powder, 4g salt, 20g (dry weight) fully hydrated chia seeds*, 160g water) and commencing the bulk ferment.
Letting it rest and hydrate for 30min and then will start with stretch and folds. Trying to keep it gentle to avoid the seeds ripping the gluten.
Will keep aside a small sample in a small glass container with a marker to asses fermentation and growth of the dough as spelt can gather pace very suddenly in the BF.
(*) Have to give my thanks in public to Steve Petermann for the labour of love to produce the invaluable soaker hydration data. Once I figured out how to use it a new world of soakers and using seeds in bread has opened up multiplying the possibilities for new bread tastes and textures. A really great good citizen act!
I always use 2% for total flour. So 400g flour total between biga and adding 200 today = 8 g. Can you address this before I mix ? Thanks
One of the reasons I started making my own bread was to see if I could reduce my sodium intake as a way of managing my blood pressure better.
While Tuscan no-salt bread is probably a step too far for me and I soon realized that salt in bread has structural/chemical reasons for being included as well, I found that I could go down to 1% without any noticeable taste or baking downsides, hence my lower salt %. Feel free to use as much as you are accustomed to use.
I also wanted to use less salt in bread for the same reasons. I did a lot of searching on the subject and found a journal article that stated that salt could be reduced down to 0.25% without too much change to the bread processing characteristics. I also found info that the effect of salt is mainly due to the presence of the chloride ion, so the replacement of some of the salt with potassium chloride (or even calcium chloride) is possible. I haven't tried the CaCl2, but using some KCl works just fine.
Yes, I agree. When I started, I first went with around 1.5% and worked my way down gradually, but at some point I started to feel challenged by the lack of tightness of the gluten structure and the complaints of the rest of the family about the taste and decided 1% was more within my comfort zone and would still be a big improvement on the salt content of commercial bread, so stuck with it.
Maybe now I am more confident about my SD baking skills I will start to reduce further and see what I can get past the others in the household :-)
I remember reading somewhere that Italian salt-free breads are intended to be eaten with strongly-flavored foods, not on their own.
The bulk ferment is progressing at a pace. Already sounding hollow when tapping the mixing bowl from underneath and has expanded by about 25-30%.
This is what it looks like after x2 stretch and folds.
This is the bulk ferment after 3.5h and x4 S&F and one lamination. Letting it rest and grow for another 30min and then will shape into a boule and proof in the banneton.
Poke test still not quite there, but pretty close. Dough is very active and full of bubbles as I did the lamination. Sample in the glass container about double in size now.
In the banneton proving after final shaping 4h after mixing the final dough. Will start warming the oven in about 15-20min as it takes about 40min to come up to 230C which I use, with the dutch oven in.
Proving nearly done. Oven nearly up to a steady 230C. Getting ready to bake this in 5-10min.
Here is what the loaf looked like when it went in, before scoring.
And this is what came out. Quite amazing oven rise. As you can see from the 'ear', it actually lifted the lid of the dutch oven slightly! This is baked for 25min with lid on, and 15min with lid off.
Its crackling nicely as it cools now. Smells amazing. Can't wait to cut into it. For 50% spelt to get this kind of shaping and this kind of oven rise, I am very happy with that.
6h 25min from mixing final dough to baked loaf out of the oven. Pretty good for using 20g of SD starter only.
Beautiful loaf.
Final photo to show the crumb. Unfortunately its not a very good shot, but the bread came out very nice again. Excellent flavor and texture.
Very happy to have managed to repeat it with as good or even better results than the previous attempt. Feels like it is not a fluke but a useful technique to use and develop further.
Over and out from the biga bake.
I’m extremely pleased with my version. The rye flavor is better and cleaner than I can remember in any recent bake. Texture is lovely and absolutely NO sour whatsoever. Excellent bread technique. I think I’ll increase the hydration a bit and play with other flour combos. Thanks again. Caroline
Thanks Caroline. It was good to have someone goading me to explain things and, as a result, documenting the process more fully.
Glad you felt it was worth your while and found enough in it to continue experimenting.
My next step now will be to try it with a 100% wholemeal (wholegrain) wheat loaf, with 50% going into the shaggy SD biga.
But this 50% spelt, 7% chia seeds, 50% strong white SD biga loaf is definitely a keeper for me. The chia and spelt work really well together, giving a rich nuttiness to the taste an a high protein content too. I ate a slice of it with some home made houmous for dinner and it filled me up like a proper meal.
I posted a pic below in Blogs. Wish TFL would get their photo/edit thing working like it used to. I don’t have time for messing with outside editing.
Kepp posting your experiments!. c
Managed to find some time to have a go at a 100% wholegrain wheat loaf at 80% hydration using the 50% 'shaggy' SD biga.
Very nice taste and good soft moist and airy (for 100% WW) crumb.
BF run-away from me a little, as fermentation was going at a fair pace. Only managed 2 S&F and 1 lamination before shaping and putting in the banneton for a couple of hours proving in the fridge. Still felt a little overproved, but still, a nice result. Key improvement next time will be to keep a much closer eye on the BF as it seemed to accelerate fast.
Some final comments on the 50% SD biga demo loaf.
This loaf has retained its freshness very well. I had a couple of slices this morning for breakfast and it is pretty much as soft and moist as when I first cut into it, nearly two days after.
It is very filling. Two slices for breakfast with cream cheese and at around 8am and don't feel hungry till 1pm at the earliest. I think the high protein content from the spelt and chia seeds and the descent fiber content for an ostensibly white loaf from the spelt and chia seeds mean that it gets digested and metabolized more slowly than other non wholegrain loaves I have done.
This is a slightly better picture for showing the crumb.
Here are a couple of photos of the two loaves.
This is the first one. 25% wholegrain rye, 12.5% white spelt, 7% millet (soaked), rest strong white. Loaf hydration 70%. Combined 100% hydration wholegrain rye levain and 50% hydration spelt 'shaggy' biga.
This is the 2nd loaf. 50% white spelt, 5% chia seeds (soaked) rest strong white. All the spelt used for a 50% hydration 'shaggy' biga left for 24h at 19C before using for the BF. Half a tsp of home made spelt malt added to BF. Overall loaf hydration 65%. BF about 3h and then left overnight in the fridge (6C). Baked at 230C in dutch oven, lid on 25min lid off 10min
They sure look good! The loft of the second one is just the ay I like it, a good accomplishment with 50% spelt.
TomP
Your loaves look good RR! I don't wish to dampen your enthusiasm for the biga process, but to be honest I seldom make biga loaves these days.
In my experience, the plus side of biga is lofty loaves, thin crispy crust and good looking, open crumb. But the downside for me is that the loaves lack flavour. I put this down to the minimal fermentation in the preferment. My preference for a yeasted preferment is a sponge, or possibly a poolish.
Just my thoughts, others may disagree.....
Lance
I had the same feeling with the CY biga previously. Maybe the first of the two loaves didn't have as much character, but the second had a lovely taste and perfume.
Maybe the addition of the malt powder helped because the colour was better and the taste was also excellent. The biga definitely needs lots of 'fuel' to run in the BF.
Found that even more with the CY trials. The bread was very pale. Classic look of sugar starved fermentation. I think that also impacts the taste too.
For the reasons you mention. I hate diastatic I don’t care how little I use it makes the dough awful . I bake the diastatic for 5 min and it converts to non diastatic. The pizza bakers I have looked at all use malt for the browning and that illusive flavor. I throw the non diastatic into bagels and pizza dough always.
my biga already looks beautiful and puffy. I’m going to stick it in the fridge to hibernate in a bit. Feeding my starter tonight so I can experiment some more.
What I enjoyed with the second 50% biga bake was that I used the starter straight out of the fridge, without any feeding and it worked great. It made the whole process so easy to fit in with the day job!
Also mixing in the shaggy biga strands to the rest of the flour and water was super easy too. No need to rip iup or anything. Looking forward to hearing the outcomes of the bakes.
For the tips. I’ve used starter straight from my supply as well. So I did what you did and just took a 20g scoop of stored starter and added the fresh ground rye and water at the rate I saw on the YouTube pizza video and made a shaggy biga. It’s in a warm ish place. I have spelt I can mill. so will see what happens. . c
Mainly I've done yeasted biga; I would certainly imagine that the SD version would have better flavour. Though I think you have to be careful as I have had SD biga turn to soup.
Lance
Yes, my initial CY trials were also underwhelming. Definitely not the kind of flavor I got with the 2nd SD starter loaf. That was one of the tastiest bakes I have done. Not sour, but very nutty and rich. I think that with 50% of the dough fermenting for 24h in the form of the biga, it makes up for the faster BF. And maybe the malt also contributed too.
I am posting the pics from the process above for the next loaf, so hopefully it comes out as well and there is some repeatability, rather than a soup..!!
Here's a video where the baker found a method that sounds almost identical to yours, though perhaps a little easier to do. It's being used to make a ciabatta - [corrected link]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nuNkBFSNEA
TomP
PS - sorry about the commercials.
Did you link the correct video? This one is about Turkish Thin FlatBread and doesn't involve a biga at all...
Grrr, operator error. Sorry, it's this one, and I'll correct it in my post, too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nuNkBFSNEA
I never use bigas because I hate dealing with trying to incorporate that thick texture but this post from the past and a lazy Saturday and some YouTube gave me ideas.
I watched several videos on pizza crust with a Sourdough biga. I also read some translations from Italian on the process of making / fermenting a biga for more flavor.
I made one today the standard way and did knead lightly to just incorporate the flour while not overworking toward gluten development. I am allowing it to ferment and will then let it reside in the refrigerator for a couple days as the Italian pizza makers suggested. I’m going to make a SD biga but need to build up my starter for bread first .
When I first read the material I thought they were talking about using an “ aged” biga AND a levain to raise a dough. I’m intrigued by that idea as well. I have spiked SD with a pinch of ADY with excellent results. Only takes a tiny pinch.
The idea of using 100% hydration starter with flour and water mixed and combined at a 50% hydration and fermented to make a SD based biga appeals as well. I’m going to try all three methods and see what I like. Will see about posting results. c
I am eagerly following.