Poolish Preferment in Words and Pictures

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From what I have read the term poolish is a Frenchism for Polish, in honor of the Polish bakers who introduced the process to the French. This could be an urban legend for all I know.

This poolish recipe calls for a mixture of equal parts water and flour plus a little yeast. The purpose of using a poolish, like using a biga, is to have a portion of the bread dough that has already undergone some of the fermentation, it is a preferment. In other words, it is a portion of the fermentation that has preceeded the making of the main dough. My expereience is that a poolish activates quicker than does a biga, but runs out of steam quicker, too.

Ingredients

Ingred	Ounces	Grams
HK Flour	10	285
Water	10	285
Dry Yeast	1/4 tsp	1

Method

• It's mixed up into a loose slurry and then allowed to sit, covered, on the counter for one of three periods of time:
• Overnight. If you do this, be sure that the container is large enough to contain the expanded poolish. My poolishes routinely pop the top off a Tupperwear container with air pressure, and sometimes overflow the container.
• 2 or 3 hours, then it can be used.
• 1/2 hour, then placed in the refrigerator overnight.

How you do them is up to you.

Here we go:

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