So, I made my best bread yet but I’m not sure what part of the process made it so good. I’ll start with the recipe and explain the process because below it’s puzzling me.

Poolish one 120g water 120g whole wheat rye Pinch of dry yeast Left for 18 hours

Poolish two 120g water 120g caputo 00 pizza flour Pinch of dry yeast Left for 4 hours

Rest 210g caputo 00 pizza flour 120g water 2g dry yeast 10g salt

Why two poolishes? Because I overestimated the time it would take the first one and it had started shrinking by the time I had another look at it. A poolish is supposed to take up to 24h as far as I know, but it looks like it exhausted its energy through the night. So I pushed my schedule by 4 hours and took the time to make another poolish with the bread flour.

Then I used my regular process. Mixing it all. Leaving it 5 minutes to absorb all the water. Kneading 7-8 minutes. Waited 45 minutes before starting the folds (3 sets, spaced by 30 minutes) where I noticed the dough was more elastic than I was used to. Waited 2 hours covered at room temperature (22°C 72F) then another hour in the fridge. After shaping it’s taken about 45 minutes for the dough to be ready (judging by the spring back test, the amount of bubbles and how much it had grown). I scored with a knife that I had sharpened a few days before, so the scores were super nice. I bake with a medium sized dutch oven at 250C (480F). Oven spring was great. Baked for 20 minutes, removed the lid for 10 more (and turned it around halfway) with the oven slightly open at 240C (460F), then let it 10 more with the oven off.

This is my best bread yet, it’s still crispy two days later, it looks amazing, but I’m not sure why :D

What’s different from my usual process:

  • The two poolishes
  • I usually ferment only in the fridge, for around 3 hours, not at room temp.
  • The knife was ultra sharp so the scoring was very smooth.
  • crt0o@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    10·
    24 days ago

    Might just be that more poolish = more flavour, as far as I’m aware poolish is only used by bakeries because they don’t have enough fridge space to ferment all the dough overnight. Baking at home, you usually don’t have that limitation. What I do is make the dough in the evening, and put it straight in the fridge, in the morning, I’ll take it out, and since it’s had time to autolyse, it’s usually very workable. Then I’ll do a couple folds over a few hours (keeping it at room temp) and throw it in the oven.

    Another thing I noticed: If you usually use the same recipe as this, but without one of the poolishes, the hydration comes out to 72%, but adding another poolish will raise the hydration to 80% because the poolish is wetter than your base dough. Maybe you’re noticing the difference in hydration? I find that higher hydration usually yields bigger bubbles, a softer interior and a crispier crust.

    • cgTemplar@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      4·
      24 days ago

      Omg my math was wrong! I didn’t even realize. I usually use 320g water, not 360g, because I’ve been bad with manipulating high hydration doughs but this might be the main reason this one is so good.

      Thanks for noticing that.

      And about autolyse, you mean you’ve already added yeast/strater in the evening before putting it in the fridge? I thought autolyse only worked without it because the fermentation was already started.

      • crt0o@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        4·
        24 days ago

        Hmm, yeah, I didn’t know yeast messes up autolysis. I add everything in the evening and put it in the fridge, maybe it still works since the yeast takes a while to get going in the fridge. I also use cold water instead of lukewarm to slow it down even more, the goal is a slow fermentation overnight to get flavour and develop the gluten, while making sure the yeast still has enough “energy” for a rise in the morning. I guess you could also let the flour and water sit for a while before adding the yeast and salt and putting it in the fridge to make sure it really autolyses.

        For high hydration, using high protein flour and letting the dough sit for a while before trying to work it really helps in my experience. Also, wetting your hands before touching the dough, but I imagine you’re already doing that.

        • Carrot@lemmy.todayEnglish
          3·
          23 days ago

          I am also a passerby with no knowledge about this whatsoever, but I would imagine that they own a nice kitchen scale, which would allow for much simpler and more accurate measurements than a liquid measuring cup or similar

        • cgTemplar@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          2·
          23 days ago

          I have a big scale and a small one so I just weight everything for accuracy (and reassurance hah). But with water, ml or g make no difference since the kilo/gram system is based on the weight of water.

  • Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    24 days ago

    The process you describe has a very short autolysis step (the 5 minutes to absorb water), I suggest you try your usual process again, but give it 30 minutes there. The autolysis helps in developing gluten strenght and is even more beneficial than folding.

    IMO the reason why it worked better with the double poolish is because the second poolish had time to autolize and developed a very good gluten polymerization and you profited from that as you kneaded it 4h later

    • cgTemplar@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      3·
      20 days ago

      Yeah I should try that too. I’m a bit afraid of autolyse since -If I understand it correctly- I’d have to mix in the yeast after the rest of the dough has already come together. That might be easy with a starter, but the small amount of yeast I use makes me feel like it could end up by not spreading throughout the dough, and even having patches of yeast at some spots. But I might be overthinking it.

      If you’re right about the second poolish doing all the heavy lifting, it means the first one was entirely useless, right?

      • Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        22 days ago

        No, I think the first one did the fermenting, the second one helped with gluten.

        You don’t need to worry with yeast distribution, you do the poolish as you are already doing, only change is that before you mix the poolish with the rest of the ingredients, you leave water and flour to know each other for a 30-60 minutes, mix it just a bit no need to knead at all.

        Then you mix the autolyzed dough with the poolish and salt and knead for 5-10 minutes, it will be mixed very well after all that kneading, no worries.

        Then you fold and let rise as your current process, I don’t do fridge steps, unless I need to wait with baking for some reason.

        Edit: yeast with the main mass is useless imo, the yeast should all come from the poolish, that is why we do it: to give the yeast a head start and have more flavour as a bonus

    • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      2·
      24 days ago

      I’m wondering if the double polish provided a lot more yeast activity considering OP usually fridge-ferments for a short time. I’ve been struggling with recipes in winter and I think it’s just because there’s so much lag in my cold house.

    • cgTemplar@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      3·
      24 days ago

      Well you’re correcting a big mistake then : I was certain that the poolish had to stay a lot longer, and specifically at room temperature. This is key to figuring out the mystery, thanks a lot.

      Reading through the comments, I’m indeed thinking that the first poolish was overripe and the second one did all the work.