Poolish

I made a French bread with poolish last night. I think I used 1 cup water to 1 cup flour and it wasn't organic flour, it was whatever the grocery store had in stock. AP unbleached, I believe. It definitely gives the bread a more interesting flavour than if you don't include a pre-ferment. 

Thank you, this is exactly the info I was looking for. I already have a sourdough but I wanted a way to stretch out my yeast supply for non-sour breads. I appreciate you posting this.

I have questions!

• Do you feed the mother poolish 3/4 C flour and 1/2 C water again after removing the one-cup amount you use in your bake?
• If you use one cup of the poolish to leaven your bread, how many grams of flour are in the dough? In other words, how much dough will one cup of this poolish raise in your normal amount of time?
• What is the normal amount of time for your bulk ferment using this poolish as your only leavening? Is is similar to commercial yeast, or more like sourdough?

Thank you again!

-Jess

150 grams fresh-milled hard red winter wholemeal flour

180 grams water

1 gram yeast

I used more water because I read it is supposed to be 'liquid' and 100% hydration for the WW hard red is definitely a dough not a sponge.

I'm leaving it on the counter overnight tonight. Tomorrow if it seems active I'll try using 150 grams of it to leaven 450 grams of the same flour at around 75% hydration. That will leave about 180 grams, that I can then feed, let rise, stir down and refrigerate for next time.

I wonder if I should be planning on using a larger proportion of poolish in my dough. It seems like some formulas call for as much as half the dough as pre-ferment.

If anyone is following along, I had my first 100% whole wheat bake with a poolish today and it worked just fine. In fact, I might have to learn to score a little more deeply, as the oven spring was pretty good and the tear wasn't exactly on the score line.  

I fed the remaining 160 grams of poolish/mother with 150 grams of coarsely-ground flour and 140 grams of water, let it rise until doubled, stirred it down and put it in the fridge. I imagine it might be subject to nasty molds and such without the protective effect of the lactic fermentation microbes. I will try to keep an eye on it and be sure to bake every few days to it gets a feed and a good stir. And we'll see what happens...

Here are some pictures of the bread. This is 440 grams of hard red, 110 grams of spelt, 403 grams of water, and 150 grams of poolish at 120% hydration. Plus 11 grams of salt. Autolyse for an hour, added poolish and salt, hand knead for 5 minutes, bulk ferment for 4 or 5 hours, lamination/letter fold, rest for 1/2 hour, another letter fold, rest for 15 minutes, rounded, rest for 15 minutes, shaped and put into banneton, final proof went for about 45 minutes and I aimed for firm-tender rather than quivery-tender. Placed in clay baker, scored, heavily misted, baked covered at 425F for 30 minutes, uncovered, baked for another...um.. probably around 30 minutes. 

How long can you keep it going? What you would be doing would be quite like starting a sourdough culture, but with baking yeast already in it.  I wonder if it would gradually turn into sourdough?  I believe that brewers and the like who maintain yeast cultures have to observe strict hygeine and feeding regimes to avoid them spoiling.  I will definitely try this and see what happens.  But at the moment, flour and instant yeast are in short supply :(