August 11, 2023 - 12:11pm
Old dough recycle from biga
I make pizza from 100% biga, stiff hydration, 40%, adding just water and salt the next day.
If I keep a piece of my biga to use as a preferment for the next biga, and repeat everytime, only using commercial yeast once in first biga, would that preferment gradually catch wild yeast, and eventually turn into proper sourdough?
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If proper sourdough is defined by the presence of Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB), then the answer is Yes.
If LAB isn't present in the first case, it will inevitably grow along side the presence of yeast.
As Michael said. Once it has turned into a sourdough biga then you'll notice a change in taste. If you can you can always measure the pH level of your fermented biga and that should give you an idea of when this change has taken place.
It might but before that it would spoil your pizza. Recycling old yeasted dough several times in a row in order to use it in baking is not recommended.
Old dough method is used in many bakeries around the world. Why would it spoil my pizzas? Could you please elaborate?
Prof.Raymond Calvel, who was a French baker with huge experience, wrote about it in his Taste of Bread book. He teaches the old dough method, it was his favorite technique to use in yeasted French breads, but he warns to use the old dough from the previous bread dough batch only once. Not as the endless chain, not even for two days in a row.
For the next batch, prepare a small amount of bread dough from scratch beforehand and use it as an improver for this day's bake, then keep a portion of that ripe bread dough refrigerated for the next day's bread dough. That ends the cycle.
For the next day's batch start from zero again: prepare a small amount of yeasted bread dough from flour, yeast, salt and water, let it mature, and use it and/or refrigerate it, add it to the large batch of bread dough, etc.
That is the appropriate way, according to him.
If you constantly keep a portion of today's raw bread dough to add to tomorrow's bread dough, it will eventually spoil the bread/ dough he says. I assume it's because it becomes both a little too acidic with each use and spoilage microorganisms from flour and bakery environment propagate relentlessly inside the warm raw dough over the course of many days. Eventually, it will become noticeable, one day, a large batch of bread dough will be lost.
I've never tried it myself for several days in a row, his warning made sense to me. I tested the old dough method, found it unsuitable for my flour which is already too strong, and the old dough method strengthens it even further, and abandoned it. Poolish and liquid prefermentsworks better for my Canadian flour than stiff preferments such as old dough or sponges. They are more suitable for weaker low protein European bread flours.
If his theory is right, then maintaining a starter should get spoiled in a few days or weeks, which is not the case. Starters live for decades.
Anyway, I keep my old dough in the freezer, leaving no chance for bad bacteria.
Thought you meant can one nurture a yeasted piece of dough into a starter. It can be done but I think the difference here is "nurtured".
When starters are made, at first there are some unwanted bacteria in the initial bubbling up. It is the nurturing that allows the good bacteria and yeast to out do the bad bacteria, turning it into a safe leavening agent.
Just keeping a piece of dough for a long time won't turn it into a sourdough starter. It is the process of discarding, feeding, allowing the pH to lower so the good bacteria can proliferate while the bad bacteria die off that prevents the spoiling.
I like the idea, that Marianna explained, of making a purposeful piece of "old dough" to begin the process. Then one can keep a piece back for one further bake after which the process starts again.
Using old dough should be a convenient way with less steps. Plus, I meant to recyle to allow LAB to gradually build. I'll stick with recycling old dough, retarded in fridge of freezer. If, at any given time, it started spoiling my dough, only then I'll make a new one, but not every other bake, no thank you.
BTW, you understood me correctly, my question is about initial commericly yeasted dough, waiting for LAB in subsequent batches to gradually take over.