January 11, 2011 - 9:36am
Substituting biga for poolish
If you substitute biga for poolish (or vice versa) in a dough is it safe to say that rising times and quality of the bread will essentially be the same? And I assume in making the substitution you would not use equal amounts of biga or poolish, but you would use amounts based on equal amounts of flour (volume or weight) contained in each. Right?
RB
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OK, I'll suggest an answer to my own question. I went ahead and made the bread substituting the biga for the poolish on a weight for weight basis. Rising times for bulk fermentation and shaped loaf rise were the same, as was baking time and other variables ( as much as I was aware). Today's bread was light, airy, fluffy, with somewhat tight crumb -- sort of like a Safeway baguette, and I don't mean this in a negative sense. ( I have always wondered how Safeway gets such light, airy bread.) This bread was very tasty. The last loaf I made with poolish produced a crusty, big holed, rustic bread, also delicious, but of a very different sort. I am amazed to have produced two, such different breads, changing nothing but the nature of the preferment.
RB
Oops! I mistakenly used twice as much biga in my second loaf as I should have, which probably explains the very significant difference in the two loaves. I'll have to repeat the test properly to see what happens. But all is not lost, I think I have learned what twice the normal amount of preferment will do to a recipe. As I said, both very good, and both very different.
RB