September 9, 2016 - 7:24am
Poolish Volume?
I made my first attempt at poolish this week using the Ken Forkish recipe for White bread with poolish. I used 500g water, 500g flour and 1/8t instant yeast. After 14 hours it was very bubbly and smelled alcoholic but it didn't increase in volume. The recipe said it should have tripled. It wasn't deflating in the middle so i decided to use it anyway.
I added 500g more flour, 250g water, 21g salt and 3/4t yeast. The final mix was VERY wet. I could barely fold it but, I'm new at this so I went with it. The final mix tripled but was so wet everything stuck when shaping. The bread had no oven spring and the crust was like a rock.
There is no way this can be right. Can anyone help me out? Where did I go wrong?
THANKS!
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I believe you have doubled up the recipe but didn't double up the yeast in the poolish.
Salt was slightly more than double but negligible. So that's fine.
When it comes to how wet your dough is, it could be the flour you are using and/or how you're handling it.
Thanks Lechem! I was following the White bread w/ Poolish recipe in Flour Water Salt Yeast. I tried to follow it exactly since this is my first poolish so I didn't double it up. I was wondering about the flour though since I was using all purpose flour I bought at Costco. I will try with a different flour next time.
Poolish:
Don't have the book in-front of me but something doesn't add up here. It seems from this recipe that 1/8th tsp dried yeast for the poolish is for 250g flour + 250g water. You said you used 1/8th tsp dried yeast in double that. Have you checked?
Final Dough:all of the above
At the side of the packet what percentage is the protein out of 100g flour?
His numbers are correct. This recipe doubles yeast in poolish. That is someone halved book recipe recipe but didn't half yeast in the poolish.
Don't have my book on front of me. So its not the yeast amount.
Is the yeast healthy though? The next thing to rule out.
If I am reading the markings correctly, then near the top of his container it says 4 quarts. If the one before it say 3 quarts, then it's not an entirely unreasonable height for a kilo of poolish. As for the yest health his poolish looks over- rather than underfermented.
It's easier to see. Looks like it did rise and fall. Loads of bubbles which I couldn't see on my phone before. So flour and timing may be the issue here.
Unfortunately it was a HUGE bag that got tossed. I google imaged it though and there was a post on this site saying the ConAgra Harvest flour was normally around 9.2% protein.
Don't go under 12-13%
It sounds like you used the AP flour from Great River. I used it too and was disappointed with my results. I did occasionally try to use it as a bench flour but in the end, I simply threw away about six pounds or so. The whole wheat flour from Great River worked well in recipes but the unbleached AP isn't at all similar to other AP flours. It isn't as finely milled and has more bran in the product.
If you're using the Eagle Mills AP that touts its use of "ultra grain", you have my sympathies once again. I worked through two of the ten pound bags when I first started baking bread and found that as soon as I switched brands, my results improved. If you're intent on using AP flour, you might check out the 10# bags of KAF AP at Walmart. They're reasonably priced at less than $7 here in Kansas and should have a similar pricing elsewhere. If your local store doesn't stock it, try the Walmart grocery shopping online service to see if you can have it delivered to your local store. Talk to the store manager if you still have problems.
He had a 25/50 lb bag of Conagra H&R flour.
There are multiple reasons that can explain your observations. Yes, your flour could be too weak - Conagra gives the protein range for this flour as 11 +/- 2%, which means that, indeed, the protein content in your flour could be as low as 9%. Now, 9% is still perfectly usable, but it calls for a completely different approach. It could be that your flour needs less water, either because it's ability to absorb water is not high enough or due to seasonal fluctuations. I could be that your poolish simply ran away on you - that clear ring above suggests that it may have collapsed. This may be due to a measurement error, or high ambient temperature.
As to the handling issues with the final dough - sounds like par for the course. 75% hydration makes for a very wet dough even with the best and strongest flours and requires some time to master.
I thought 9% was pretty usual for AP flour. For some formulas that is perfectly acceptable.
When I bought a huge bag of flour from Costco like that I next bought a bag of bread flour from Costco that would have been 14%+. By combining the two flours I got a good blend for everyday loaves that made just fine loaves.
All in all, it worked out fine.
For AP flour I usually think 10.5-11%.
Thank you all so much! This was very helpful. The yeast is new and it worked last week on another bread I made. I keep it in the fridge... that's what I am supposed to do...right?!?!
I bought some king arthur all purpose flour and I am gonna try again tomorrow. I live in Florida so our house runs hot and the ambient temp may have been an issue too. I will watch it closer and let you all know how that works out. I figured the high hydration was a little above my skill level but gotta keep trying I guess. Thanks again!
Could the poolish have peaked and collapsed while you weren't looking? Seems like a lot of yeast for a 14 hour poolish, depending on your ambient temperature. The smell of alcohol is typically evidence of overproofing.
And no oven spring also indicates the final dough was overproofed.
and tuck the poolish into the fridge after 6 hours, then use when ready. Runny dough is no fun so reduce the water especially if you have high humidity. Try a poolish with only 80% hydration so 400g water and 500g flour. Changing the water amount leaves less to recalculate, the salt, flour and other ingredients stays the same. If you add more flour, then one has to recalculate the salt and the yeast and anything else to get the same dough as the recipe.
Poolish fermenting times run from 6 to 14 hours but not all poolishes can go that long. It's a wide range meant to cover a wide variety of flours. Yours sounds like you should use the shorter end of the scale, heat, humidity and weak flour would ... like I suggest... let it ferment 6 hrs and then chill it down. You could also use ice water when mixing the poolish.
Have fun :)
Thank you all so much!
My poolish must have peaked before (or my measurements were way off). The minute I mixed with the King Arthur flour it looked completely different than the first time(much thicker). I checked it after 8hrs and it looked so much better. Ended up leaving it for 12 hours and it actually tripled this time. The dough was SO much easier to work with and didn't stick as badly. I cut down on the final proof too since it seems my house is a little hot. They turned out great. Thank you all again!