42% ww biga in lean wh grain loaf, clas, Zoji
I made a 100% whole grain loaf with 42% whole wheat biga (4hr).
It was a definite improvement over my usual daily clas loaf- softer and nicer texture. The loaf of 472 g total flour was as tall as a 520 gr flour lean clas loaf (9% less flour means roughly 9% less calories per slice!). I used 200 gr whole wheat flour for the biga to keep the measurements simple. The hydration of the biga was 75% as compared with 50%. All the coarse sifted particles went into the biga. Clas went into the main dough and conditioned all of the whole wheat grains - no bitterness from the hard red wheat berries!
Here is the ww biga:
Below: The crumb shows hardly any visual difference but the softness is significant. Left slices result from 520g flour dough; right slices from 472g flour dough w/ biga -- about the same height :).
Mixing up a biga ahead of time is hardly any effort and the rise (for using 9% less flour) and softness will be worth it.
MILL 418 g Wh Wheat Berries (hard red/white) and 14 gr Wheat malt. Sift out the coarse particles (use in the biga).
The Whole Wheat biga:
200 gr freshly milled wheat (all of sifted coarse particles here with added extracted flour)
1/3 tsp diy
150 gr water
Mix as a biga (see R. Susta -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzCbv97Tn8 )
Rest 4h room temp.
Dough (20 min total kneading in Panasonic 2550; mix biga, clas, water and flour together-mix 10 min; add salt and yeast after 10 min)
All Biga
100 gr - clas 150% hydration (mix with water and pour over biga to loosen it a bit; then add flour)
168 g water
218g Finely milled Wh Wheat (this will be the rest of the extracted flour)
14g Fr Milled Wheat Malt (milled with reg wheat)
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9g salt
0.6g DIY (1.6g = 1/2 t; use 1/6 tsp for .6gr-total yeast in loaf will be 1/2 tsp)
Bake in Zoji (10min preheat; 50-55 min Bake)
Oven bake with steam ok too.
Desired dough temp -205-208F
Nice slices of loaf. I write this with the good smell of my 11th loaf, and second attempt with biga, awaiting to complete the baking process.
Reading about your ingredients I noticed hydration of your biga is very high. Mine is 44%. With 75% is it still technically a biga? Or doesn’t matter with no kneading and so little yeast.
I think its 75% hydration because the biga uses whole wheat, much thristier than white flour.
Hi W M,
I was experimenting with the hydration because my hard red wheat was freshly milled. Even at 75% it was still holding the biga texture and with dry flour too.
I am continuing some more experiments but I had to resort to my soft white wheat berries- I am running out of hard red until my order comes in later this month!
I milled 400 g soft wheat and added 1/2 t diy (dried inst yeast-saf). It needed only 50% water.
Here are some pictures:
I left it 2 hr at room temp 78F and now it is in the refrig for next 12-24h. I am not sure how long it can go. I heard to not let it go over 48h with white 00 Flour. I am still thinking of what to try it with (gnocchi, stovetop partial baked foccacia?? <-- update 10/8- ever hear of fermented gnocchi?-- they actually float but have a little off-taste in comparison with regular ones! stovetop focaccia was a little dense (: )
Please show your work! I am very interested!!
>hard red wheat was freshly milled
Two things I didn’t know in one sentence.
Hard red wheat is unknown or unused in Italy, I think. And not available at neighbouring supermarkets in Hong Kong. Hard wheat is well known instead, of course. In fact my first dough recipe prescribed 1/3 of semolina and never removed the ingredient since then. Makes the curst surprisingly crispy. Didn’t know how to regard it in terms of leavening and hydration potential though. I see now it is also used as a base, and not add-on, ingredient as well. Why to use hard wheat flour for biga if I may ask?
Freshly milled flour required some reading here on the forum. Again was not aware people had the inclination, and space, to use a mini mill at home. Never underestimate the power of retail products I guess.
> I left it 2 hr at room temp
I keep it 24 hrs in the fridge and 12 hrs at room t. Seems to be working, leavening is consistent and resilient, but don’t have much in term of visual references to understand if biga is “right”. It matches the procedure and outcome [1] of Gorilli recipe but variations between before and after fermentation are subtle. Nothing as dramatic and obvious as a leavened dough.
1. https://blog.giallozafferano.it/giovannibrigandi69/biga in Italian
Hi,
--
"Why to use hard wheat flour for biga if I may ask?"
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Many people have an interest in using the whole grain of the wheat berry (bran, germ and endosperm).
I bought a mill (Komo brand) a few years ago and started milling/grinding flour from the whole wheat berry.
I then found here at "the fresh loaf", several groups of enthusiasts who bake with freshly milled flour. Some mix with white bread flour in varying amounts compared to the whole wheat milled flour.
I happen to use the hard red wheat (but hard white is also commonly used) for most of my bread baking, so naturally after I saw the great results of making a biga with 00 Flour I wanted to see what happened with a biga made from freshly milled flour. A pizza baker showed his results here. He suggested leaving the biga out at room temp for 12-14 h but since I was not going to get around to using it for a couple of days, I put it in the refrig after 2h.
When I used the biga with freshly milled wheat flour, I got a very nice softness and rise that I like. That is why I will be using for regular loaf bakes.
Hydration of fresh milled whole wheat (for my bakes) is usually 80% but there is a wide range for it.
Thank you for your link. I read the information and it was very helpful on temps!
The company that makes the mill I have is German. I would think that hard wheat berries are available in Europe.
>I wanted to see what happened with a biga made from freshly milled flour
Perfectly legitimate curiosity. I will possibly try with semolina after stabilising my results and achieving basic knowledge.
>A pizza baker showed his results here
At the beginning I thought he was preparing biga with whole wheat flour. Then a focaccia. Finally Italian sausages with red wine roux. He then topped one wwith the other! It looked delicious but I would argue title is misleading.
Something curious to me is the absence of additional yeast in the second mix. As mentioned my recipes prescribe otherwise.
As it happens booklet of my bread machine has a whole wheat pizza recipe I was eyeing at. I will get there.
Biga preparation procedure I linked before is actually for pizza. I assumed wouldn’t be different for bread. Another one from the mill I am currently buying from, curious enough available at the supermarket in Hong Kong, shows [1] a big bucket sealed with plastic lid and fermented at a fresh temperature of 19° C only. Not having temperature control lead me to choose the “long” version with a period in the fridge and another at room t.
>I got a very nice softness and rise that I like
I agree, even with my limited experience, biga makes for excellent leavening and softness. I resorted to it for flavour though because previous loaves were quite lacking in that regard. Very fast leavening with pure yeast is no match with pasta madre and long fermentation.
Used to buy from a nearby bakery selling bread made with pasta madre. Unfortunately they switched to a cheaper procedure some time ago. Thought of biga as a sort of middle ground for my home bread. Feels like flavour has improved but not as much as I would like without resorting to external aides.
1. https://www.molinograssi.it/recipe/la-biga/
Hi WM,
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"A pizza baker showed his results here. At the beginning I thought he was preparing biga with whole wheat flour."
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The pizza video by Mile Zero Kitchen was making a whole wheat biga. See 0:54 on yt.
I have followed his directions on a biga with 00Flour (white pizza flour) and yeast; when the dough was mixed there was no more yeast added. After the dough is mixed he laminates (stretches out onto the table) before dough goes into refrig for 3 h, followed by 3h room temp. It worked really well.
Working with 100% 00Pizza flour results in such beautiful bakes.
Preparing a 150g biga now. Won’t need anything larger as I understand up to 50% of total dough flour weight is the maximum amount. Why is so by the way?
I noticed in my latest preparation with biga crust was noticeably softer than usual. The entire loaf is softer and easier to cut so it should not be a surprise. Semolina makes for crispier crust but also denser crumb and biga compensated that. I may even remove semolina from the mix and see what happens. Super fluffy bread perhaps.
My first loaf, only a few weeks ago, collapsed because of excessive yeast: edible but very dense. In the period since I reduced yeast by almost 70%. What an improvement.
Tomorrow will be baking again and increase the level of crust darkening setting on my machine. Fingers crossed.
It is great to hear from a bread machine baker!
I am glad to hear about the extra softness you are getting and the reduction in yeast. I too used to bake recipes for bread requiring a lot of yeast (2 Tablespoons) and then reducing it drastically (1/2 teaspoon is usually enough)!
What machine do you use? I have an older model Zojirushi and though the machine fluctuates between 325F and 400F throughout the hour of baking, many types of bread can be baked. Today we are still having HOT weather , so the BM is really handy.
I just did a quick 1 hr whole wheat poolish (115% hydration on the flour with a pinch of dried instant yeast) on about 45% of the freshly milled flour. I was surprised at the strength of the dough after mixing! (By the way, I use the Russian rye sourdough starter clas.) The whole bake after the hour of poolish was 4.5h.
Hope your loaf is good tomorrow!
What kind of bread required such an enormous amount of, dry I assume, yeast? About 30 grams at 2% would have served for 1.5 kg of flour.
I know Zojirushi are quite popular. I have an old Unold machine. Second hand but never used before so it was a good deal. Chosen that particular model because of the ceramic coated pan.
Clas is something I have not read about. I will after accumulating enough experience.
Happy baking.
It went well. New loaf at maximum darkening setting and 50% of biga by weight of flour came out with the softest crumb yet and passable crust. I prefer a crispier crust but one can not have everything. It also rose properly even with the smallest amount of dry yeast yet at just 1%.
Taste remains good but realised salt is lacking. Read it is antagonistic of the gluten net formation but what is the maximum safe amount I can add?
The standard amount most often published is 2% (and I have often read 2.2% but I don't know if that extra 0.2% really matters). Salt can be desirable not only for taste but for the way it affects the gluten. "Antagonistic" is too simplistic a notion. If you have dough that tends to be too extensible - it stretches out like warm taffy - and doesn't get elastic enough, you can use more salt or add it earlier. If your dough tends to be stiff and never is able to stretch out much, you could add salt later or use less. A lot depends on the kind of flour since they differ in extensibility and gluten strength.
Adding more salt will also slow down the fermentation. That's not a bad thing unless you really need a short process time for some reason. But then you probably wouldn't choose to use a biga over straight yeast.
TomP
Thank you for the detailed answer. Booklet I am following suggests 2/3 tsp of salt or about 1% so you are doubling that. Will try. Dough ball seems good to me so will keep adding to the rest of the ingredients.
Just to be clear, by 2% I meant 2% of the flour weight. Measurements by tsp can vary depending on the spoon, the fineness of the salt, and the teaspoon filler.
That's a subjective question. Just salt till you like it and go from there. Adjustments will be minor - if that. Enjoy!
I usually use 2% salt.
Mixing with Salt-
Mixing if no poolish/biga
I usually mix in 2 steps
Step 1:
Develop gluten (of flour, water and starter)
Step 2: Add yeast and salt.
With poolish/biga:
After biga is ready-
Mix Dough-I added all the the salt with poolish, additional flour, additional yeast and water. It didn't seem to matter.
Glad to hear about your loaves!!
I read about your BM too-it looks nice and has good options.
I tried a 100% whole wheat flour in a poolish with a tiny bit of yeast. It only went for 4 hrs. The main dough had no more flour added except the rye in the starter. I could increase the hydration 5 % more! Interesting.