December 3, 2024 - 4:36pm
Yeast to sourdough advice
I have a pretty fail proof yeasted sandwich loaf made with poolish and yeast and want to switch to sourdough. Here’s the formula
POOLISH (made night before)
246g flour
246g water
1g fresh yeast
Main dough
Poolish
574g flour
182 g water
9g fresh yeast
17g salt
53g eggs
38g butter
119g cream cheese
My question is if I make poolish into levain can I just skip the yeast in the main dough and still be able to finish the bake in the same day because of time restrictions and how to determine how much starter to use to build the levain. Any advice appreciated
Thanks
Dom
Share
If the yeasst is removed - things may take longer and may not fit your schedule. The stronger the starter - the less - or no - yeast is used. Enjoy!
If you consider the poolish as a starter instead, I reckon you don't need to change anything except remove the yeast from the final dough (which looks impressively enriched).
Depends how active your starter is, but if it were me I would do one build in the morning, maybe 75:75 and then another to create the overnight starter, adding 175:175
Make your poolish with SD and no yeast. Next day use yeast in your dough. You'll get SD flavor on the schedule you want. There is no rule that requires you to omit yeast in SD bread.
Hi Dom,
Yes, it's possible to omit the yeast entirely and bake your loaf the same day that it is mixed. If you keep the amount of flour in the levain the same - 246g - that means 30% of your total flour is pre-fermented. At this % PFF, a completely white loaf is done with BF and proof within 5-7 hours at around 20 degrees. Your dough is highly enriched, so I would be cautious and give it up to 9 hours and see how it does on the first attempt.
If you want to bake your bread within the same day but in fewer hours, then you could spike the main dough with perhaps half the amount of yeast, or increase the PFF to 40-45%. Obviously adjust according to taste - switching from poolish to SD would mean a change in flavour profile and texture.
How much starter to build the levain depends on how much time you have to rise it, what kind of flour you use, % hydration, what temperature you rise it, and how active your starter is. Typically I leave my levain to rise for 10-12 hours at 20 degrees before I use it. If I'm building a completely white levain at 100% hydration, then I will go with 1:5. If your starter is also 100% hydration, that means you will use 45g of starter, 225g flour, 225g water for this recipe.
-Lin