Bread Experiments Chapter 5: Poolish vs Autolyse vs Fermented Dough

Hi everyone, I'm back again with my bread experiments. I came across this book "CRUST" by Richard Bertinet. Also, I became interested in sourdough baking after I realised that this is what is used in artisan breads. (Think Cedele, Bakerzin free flow bread.) Artisan breads have a darker crust and also dough. They also have a richer and nuttier taste, like a normal bread dough but much more concentrated in the baked goodness smell and taste.

Before I start growing my own sourdough starter (I will discuss this in my next post), I wanted to try and see if there were other ways. Shortcuts, again. But why not? So, back to the book; several techniques for breadmaking such as poolish, fermented dough and autolyse were mentioned. They mostly just require a preparation of dough to be left overnight and can be used for baking the next day. So here are my takes on these 3 techniques.

Poolish

Make the poolish:
0.3-0.5g dried yeast (if using fresh yeast multiply by 2-3 times)
70ml water
60g bread flour
10g rye flour

Mix the ingredients until homogeneous and store in an airtight container in the fridge overnight. The next day, take half of the poolish and let it come to room temperature (2-3 hours) in a covered bowl. Here's a look at my poolish.

Make the bread dough:
130 g bread flour
70 ml water (53% weight of flour)
1 g dried yeast
3 g salt
Poolish from above

Mix all the ingredients above except the salt. Then when the dough comes together, mix in the salt. Knead for 15 minutes.

Leave the dough to proof for 1-1.5 hours. Somehow, I found that this dough did not rise as much as it usually did. After 1 hour I checked on it and it was still a bit small. No alcohol smell that indicates over-proofing. So I decided to let it go on a bit more until 1.5 hours. 

After the first proof, shape the dough into the desired shape and it's time for second proof!

After 1 hour, make some slashes in the dough with a clean knife or kitchen scissors and bake it for 25 mins at 200 deg C.

Fermented dough

Prepare the fermented dough:
100g bread flour
1-2g dried yeast
2g salt
70ml water (70% weight)

Mix the ingredients and knead for 15 minutes as you would do with normal bread dough. Then keep it in an air-tight container in the fridge overnight-48 hours.

The amount above should make about 180 g of fermented dough. Take it out 2-3 hours before starting on the bread dough to let it reach room temperature.

Make the bread dough:

120g bread flour
30g rye flour (total flour weight = 150g, if you like a lighter taste can use less rye flour but make sure to keep to the total weight)
90g fermented dough
108-110ml water
3g salt

Mix all the ingredients together and knead for 15 minutes. I had a bit of trouble with this dough as it was really sticky and had to resort to slapping the dough on the table. You can see the sticky dough mess I made here.

Nevertheless I left it to proof for the next hour.

After the first hour, I sprinkled some flour on top and shaped the dough into a roundish shape and let it proof a while for 30 minutes. The original recipe calls for 3 proofs so I guessed it should be ok. There, much much better.

Then time for shaping and then the 3rd proof!

Bake for 25 minutes at 200 deg C. Ta-da!

Autolyse

The autolyse method also uses fermented dough, as above. Instead of kneading it, the mixed dough is left for 30 minutes for the gluten to develop on it's own and then we start kneading it.

Make the bread dough:

120g bread flour

30g rye flour (refer to notes on rye flour above)

100ml water 

45g ferment

1g dried yeast

3g salt

Mix the ingredients in a bowl with a spoon thoroughly (no more dried, powdery bits around) and leave it for 30-45 minutes. As I tried the fermented dough method first, this time I was more controlled and used slightly less water. At this point I noticed that the dough was a bit stringy at first, and after the autolyse (sitting for 30-45 minutes) it actually became a bit smoother. It was quite amazing since I did not expect anything to happen during the autolyse. 

Then knead the dough for 15 minutes and leave to proof for 1-1.5 hours.

After the first proof, shape it and proof it a second time (1 hour). Bake at 200 deg C to 25 minutes. This is how it looks just before and after baking.

So now is time to compare the different methods:

Poolish

Ferment

Autolyse

What I noticed immediately was the larger holes in the bread as compared to what I got from using instant yeast directly. The poolish bread tended to have a lighter, brighter colour, since no rye flour was used, and was more crispy. The breads from ferment and autolyse have a richer, nuttier taste and the crust was also chewier than the poolish bread. The autolyse bread had smaller holes also, perhaps due to the lower amount of water and fermented dough used. The inside of the bread stayed soft for 2-3 days, and did not dry out as quickly as other breads. 

I noted a few things such as using different amounts of water and less yeast, as the poolish and ferment have their own water content, as well as yeast that has multiplied slowly overnight in the fridge. 

In general, such methods require more preparation in advance but are not much more time-consuming than normal yeast bread. They also give a better flavour and seem to keep better, based on my short experiments so far. 

References:

Crust by Richard Bertinet