I have been making a lot of Ciabatta lately and even though it is a big hit in my house, I am going to do some baguettes tomorrow (well, demi baguettes really). There is just something about the baguette with poolish formula that appeals to me. I think it is the symmetry.
The poolish is 1:1 flour:water with a pinch of yeast. Then the dough is made with twice the flour used in the poolish (can also be thought of as the total weight of the poolish), but the same amount of water. This gives a nice 66.67% (2/3) hydration dough. Then it is 2% salt (of the total flour) and ~0.25% yeast (can be doubled, but I try to use as little as possible). For example:
Overnight Poolish
200g Flour
200g Water
Pinch of Yeast
Dough
400g Flour
200g Water
12g Salt
1.5g Yeast
400g Poolish (all of it)
Total Dough Weight: 1013.5g
I'm not making quite that much (closer to 900g) but this can easily be adjusted (started with 180g flour in the poolish, etc). I might make one an epi.
Just thought I'd share.
Maverick
I think it's a sound plan. Very similar to my standard operating procedure. In fact, the same exact hydration.
My only recommendations would be:
Substitute15% of the flour weight with a whole grain flour. Better flavor, nearly the same dough behavior.
Cut down the yeast a bit (perhaps by half) and give it a day (or two is even better) bulk retard. I usually portion before retard as then there is less disturbance in the preshaping.
Wide open crumb and good flavor just about guaranteed in my experience.
Either or any way, sounds good to me.
dobie
Normally the polish would be about 25% pre-fermented flour instead of your 50% especially with such a large commercial yeast kicker in the dough flour. 67% hydration is fine for a low protein AP flour that classic, traditional baguettes are made with. I think I would drop the yeast kicker in the dough or cut the poolish in half.
Happy baguette baking
dbm
If I read you right, I agree, Maverick's yeast could be reduced. From my experience, cut in half at least.
But I need to ask. If more flavor (and gluten development) comes from the longer that the flour is in water (within reason) why not (when making a poolish), get as much of that flour in water for as long as possible?
Why not take 100% of the recipe water and match it with an equal weight of flour with half the yeast to leave as a poolish overnight at room temp? Leaving 1/3 of the recipe flour to be mixed in with the poolish with the salt and the other half of the yeast 12 hours later, or so ?
Is this sound practice, or is there a better way?
dobie
I asked dabrownman a question very similar to this just the other day, and I'd like to try my hand at answering it just to make sure I got it right:
By having all that commercial yeast activity in the poolish and adding more yeast to the final dough it accelerates the timetable, making the bread ready to bake sooner. If you drop the yeast kicker or back off the poolish to 25%, the whole process will be slowed down, allowing the yeast to work its magic on the flour for a longer time. This gives it the chance to develop a deeper, more complex flavor profile.
How'd I do...?
I realized I left something out of my example (not in my bread). I forgot to put the poolish part in the final dough. I have corrected that. I think this might have been the source of some confusion. So looking back at the comments, let me address a couple things.
First is the percentage of poolish. 1/3 (33.3%) of the flour is in the pre-ferment. This is a fairly typical number for baguettes. So I don't really see anything wrong with that and might be because I forgot to mention the poolish in the "Dough" section. If you still think this is high, I would be happy to discuss it. I know Hitz and others use this amount, but I do see that several other authors use less. So even though this is what I would call a "classic" formula, perhaps the classic could stand improvements.
Second is the yeast. Again, this could be because of my error above, but one thing I honestly love about this forum is that we are so judicious with yeast. This is the only place I know that I mention using 1/2 tsp of yeast in a 1kg total dough formula and am told it is a lot. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you are incorrect in saying that. I really do appreciate the idea of using even less yeast. I know the poolish will add a good amount of yeast after it sits overnight (on the counter), but most formulas I see use at least this amount if not more.
Now I had some time constraints so I didn't want to push the yeast any lower and I am familiar with the timing with 0.25% yeast (1.5g out of 600g total flour), but for future reference I wonder what you think this percentage should be.
Here are some examples from a few books:
BBA adds about 0.4% yeast (compared to the total flour) after adding a lot to the poolish. Now the poolish is is retarded instead of left on the counter so the amount of yeast in the poolish should be about the same once it is fully fermented. That said, he uses less poolish so perhaps the added yeast is to make up for that.
DiMuzio adds an extra 0.7% yeast, but again he uses 20% pre-fermented flour compared to my 33.3%
Hamelman adds 0.8%, but the poolish is 25% pre-fermented flour.
Hitz actually turns out to use the same exact formula I do, including the amount of poolish and everything (but suggests some optional diastatic malt be added, which has me thinking about that).
much difference between a bread made with a polish a slower and one made with yeast. But others say they can. For someone who uses 10-15% pre-fermented flour for SD baguettes, even 33% pre-fermeted polish,with an additional dough flour yeast kicker, seems like overkill. I would just cut out the dough yeast entirely since it isn't needed and will just speed things up to unnecessary ramming speed. But better flavor may not be noticeable without the yeast kicker like it like it wouldn't be with me.