Having made quite a few bigas by various methods - by hand, and in spiral mixer, I've hit upon a new method that I would like to share.
It's based on using a planetary mixer; I use a Kenwood Major with the K beater, but a KA or similar should work fine if it has a similar attachment. The method seems to work best at 45% hydration.
My biga this time was based on lievito madre (15% inoculation), but the method also works fine with yeast. Here's what I did:
- put all the flour in the mixer bowl
- add in the LM, chopped up into tiny pieces
- run the mixer, initially on slowest and then a bit faster and then with a splash of the water until the LM is mixed in like breadcrumbs (like making pastry!)
- now trickle in the rest of the water on slowest until it's all in and you should have a perfectly mixed biga!
- here's what mine looked like:
Lance
Lance, I’m new to mixing undeveloped biga. How does this look?
It looks good to me. You don't have any dry floury bits hiding in there, do you?
Lance
If there is any unhydrated flour it is minuscule. It’s retarding at 61-62F now. I am trying Michael’s formula.