Bread Experiments Chapter 6: Overnight Poolish vs Week-old Poolish

From my previous baking, I still had some leftover poolish. Instead of throwing it away, I continued to keep it in the fridge for a few more days.

There was a slight alcohol smell after the third day, but as soon as it came to room temperature the smell vanished. So after taking some out to make another batch of bread, I added some flour (about 1 tablespoon) and water to the remaining poolish and mixed it to a pasty consistency before storing in it back in the fridge. Perhaps I have started a cheat's sourdough. But before I go to that let's see the results of the week-old poolish. I used the same recipe as the original.

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

Mix all the ingredients above except the salt. Then when the dough comes together, mix in the salt. Knead for 15 minutes. Then proof for 1-1.5 hours until the dough doubles in size. Shape and proof for 1 hour. Bake at 200 deg Celsius for 20 minutes.

Compare it to the bread made with overnight poolish

Ovenight

Week-old poolish

The bread from week-old poolish is darker as I added some rye flour to the poolish and also during baking. In terms of flavour it is also richer and nuttier. I feel quite encouraged by this method and I added honey and salt to the poolish mixture and will continue to monitor it.

My main concern with sourdough is the hot and humid weather in Singapore, which could cause the yeast to multiply very fast or more likely get mold rather than 'wild yeast' that we are looking for. So far I have just kept putting it in the fridge to keep the process slow and I don't need to keep feeding it as well. If anyone has tried sourdough before, please let me know.