I’ve been making Levains or using the Pate Fermentee method for my breads recently.

Decided to go back to to making a Biga preferment.

On Tuesday April 30th, I made two bigas, one with sourdough discard and the other a yeast biga.

Bigas were made in the morning and the bread doughs Tuesday night.

One with yeast and one sourdough.

Both doughs went into the fridge for a long cold fermentation.

Looked at the yeast dough when I got home from work Friday and it had not only tripled but was starting to blow the lid off of the 6 quart container.

I pushed it down half way and put it back into the fridge until after 8:00. Took it out and left it on the counter overnight. To be on the safe side, I put a heavy cast iron dutch oven on top just in case. Good thing I did.

Because when I removed the pot at 3:00 AM the lid immediately popped off from the pressure.

Decided to make six shorter, fat batards, rather than baguettes.

Sourdough batch.

This was an 8 day old dough.

I had labeled the container so I would know when this dough was made.

The Sourdough batch was left in the fridge from Tuesday April 30th until Wednesday May 8th.

Came out of the fridge at 10:00 AM yesterday morning

and was ready to use by the time I got home from work at 5:15.

I had intended to make pizza for dinner but decided to bake bread instead.

Baked last night.

Two baguettes and two ciabatta style loaves.

Nice shiny crumb.

Toast

The best reason to bake your own bread.

For years I started almost all of my

baguettes, batards, etc. with a yeast based biga.

If I wanted to bake the next day I would

start the Biga the night before.

Takes all of a minute or two to prepare.

 Yeast Biga

220g of flour

220g of water

1/2 teaspoon of yeast

(1g approx.)

If you don’t have a scale just mix together

1 1/2 cups of flour

1 cup of water

1/2 teaspoon yeast.

Mix together, cover and leave on counter overnight.

Biga needs to at least double before using.

Sourdough Biga

The Biga/Preferment can also be made with sourdough starter.

60g to 80g of starter
220g flour
220g water

BAGUETTE DOUGH/PIZZA DOUGH

The biga gets added to 1000g of flour

630 to 680g of water

(depending on the hydration you are looking for)

30g of salt

Add 1 or 2 g of yeast

(Moe is now on a reduced sodium diet so I now reduce the salt

to 15g and we haven’t missed it in the bread)

I use the autolyze, stretch and fold method and usually put the dough in the fridge for a longer

cold fermentation. Dough needs to come out of the fridge about 6 to 8 hours before using.

Needs to warm up and finishing rising.