I love baking bread again! I gave up on sourdough. I just didn't like the work of maintaining a starter. However, I don't mind making a poolish at night and starting a loaf the next morning!
My poolish is 50g flour, 50g water, and 2 pinches of yeast (<1g). After 12 hours it's ready to go!
Loaf:
400g Bread flour
100g whole wheat
375g water
100g poolish
12g salt
Seriously pleased with these results. No, it's not sourdough!!
by humblegrad
14 Comments
no money shot?
Learned about poolish in a baking class in Ireland last week. Used it to make a spelt oats loaf that was great. We used fresh yeats in addition to the yeast in the poolish.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Breadit/s/si8XlLnaqy
This person thought your bread was so amazing they decided it needed a heart wrenching story behind it (also, it looks so good, congrats)
Beautiful loaf!
You don’t need to maintain a starter though, you can just have 5-10g or even less in the fridge and you’d feed it 50g flour and 50g water 12h before baking, just like what you’re doing with dry yeast.
That’s not a loaf, that’s nearly a sphere, look at that rise!
I also get a bit annoyed when people confuse fermented starters like poolish with sourdough starter, but I suppose it can be confusing.
I love bread made with preferments, or when the dough itself is allowed an overnight fermentation, but I don’t always want that lactic acid tang of an actual sourdough starter.
I did the same thing recently, but I added honey to the “starter” and waited 2 days. The resulting bread had a mead-like flavor. I’m going to do it again with more honey and post the results.
Sorry…what’s a “poolish?”
Neat, learned something today
I too find a poolish with commercial yeast to be a reasonable substitute for sourdough. I definitely prefer the flavor of naturally leavened breads, but starters are a pain in the ass. Forkish has some good recipes.
Do you leave keep it in room temperature for 12 hours?
What are the rising times you use? Iuseca poolish for my English Muffins, but will definitely use for bread.
Started using a poolish after reading Flour Water Salt Yeast and was a game changer for me too. Good looking loaf.
My favourite thing about a poolish is that it makes it so much easier to get a nicely-textured dough that gives good oven spring, regardless of recipe or hydration. When my friends who don’t make bread want to try some, I always recommend a poolish recipe because it kind of puts the kneading and shaping onto easy mode. The results are more consistent regardless of your technique.