I use 100% biga for my pizza dough, 40% hydration , adding just water (20%) and salt the next day. But I find it a mess to mix biga and water by hand, as my mixer broke.
Any tips on how to make this easier?
I tried cutting the biga into small cubes, but that was even much harder to mix with water.
It's hard all right! I haven't tried to work with such a low hydration as 40%, but I would try to work the water in little by little. It will be slow, but I don't think you have a hope otherwise. As more water works its way into the biga it will start to get easier.
TomP
That's a it. I should do that. Many thanks.
I've worked 90% biga @45% hydration by hand and it is no picnic - no need to go to the gym later that day.
Consider using something like a (twin-blade) mezzaluna https://www.amazon.com/mezzaluna/s?k=mezzaluna to chop the biga up as finely as possible, even as small as threads if necessary. Drop it into a bowl, add water and try to make a slurry, then put it aside for a short while and let the water do its work, stopping by every so often to give several dozen squeezes to help the saturation along.
Save the addition of salt to end so that it distributes well and doesn't interfere with the water doing its job. Once that is done, apply several dozen French Folds, cover and rest for 5 minutes, and then several dozen more FFs. The 5 minutes rest will relax the dough and begin to "smooth it out" and the dough will feel much more manageable for the remaining FFs.
It will be ready for Bulk Ferment at that point.
Alan
Is the French Fold same as slap and fold?
Here's a short video I did on it a long time ago. I no longer do 300 FFs for quite a while, rather 50, 5 minute rest, 50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRCU8ULBPsY