Another bread This weekend! This time it was the poolish baguette. I decided to try using my sourdough to create the poolish. I have never done this before and usually use dry yeast for this bread, however, my starter needed to be used and I thought I would give it a try. I adjusted the moisture of the poolish to accommodate the water content of the 100 g of starter I used. To determine the moisture level of my starter, I microwaved 10g on high for 5 minutes and then reweighed it. In hind sight the 100 g was too much, but more on that below.
The poolish (a 100% hydration yeast flour and water mix) was fermented over night. The next morning, I mixed all the ingredients to form a loose sticky dough. This dough seemed much wetter than I remembered and was very sticky and hard to work with. After two folds, the loaves were formed and couched for proofing.
The poolish (a 100% hydration yeast flour and water mix) was fermented over night. The next morning, I mixed all the ingredients to form a loose sticky dough. This dough seemed much wetter than I remembered and was very sticky and hard to work with. After two folds, the loaves were formed and couched for proofing.
When they were ready, they were baked at 500 F for 30 minutes.
Because the dough was so loose, the loaves slumped a bit during the bake. I think now that the excess starter in the poolish may have caused it to over develop, a condition where enzymes increase in the dough, destroying the gluten and preventing a tighter structure. Lesson learned. I would like to attempt this again with less starter and perhaps a longer kneading time to maximize gluten development.
I was happy with the crumb and texture, however. The bread had good taste and was delicious with dinner :-)
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