44 Comments

I love a poolish! My household is small and we never ever consume enough bread or anything else to keep a sourdough starter alive without just tossing out the overage each time the starter is fed. Poolish was the way forward.

My dogs would like to inform Otto that if one has sufficiently attentive human staff, they will shovel you a path when the snow gets too deep.

(Confession: I used to dig them a racetrack.)

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I totally get this. I just don't bake enough random things to make use of the discard and I hate binning good flour.

And tell your dogs Otto says for all the shovelled paths that are made for him he likes going off piste occasionally too. 😉

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Congratulations on the new place and your new kitchen, Wil. I’ve enjoyed making my little kitchen in Italy “mine” (an ongoing process) and I miss it when I’m in the U.S.

I believe the Italian equivalent of polish is biga. I used to make a wonderful loaf that called for it but it’s been years. I look forward to trying your recipe. I don’t mind an open crumb in bread as much as I mind it in panettone. All those money shots of people slicing open their lofty panettone and inside it’s all air! Where does the butter go? 🤔

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Thanks, Domenica. And it's funny you mention panettone. I saw a picture on Instagram of just what you're describing just the other day. 50% air at least.

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Very interesting! Looking forward to trying it!

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Thanks, Celia. Let me know how you get on!

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I've managed to keep my sourdough alive but I'm going to try this. The yeast I have is 'fast acting'. Is that okay to use? And if I want to use rye flour, what % would you recommend? Looking forward to giving it a go!

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Well I love subbing in rye flour with this loaf. I normally just replace 50 to 100g of the poolish flour with rye. I'm not scientific about this but I find it works very nicely.

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It worked! Needs a bit of tweaking for the climate here but I’ll be having another go in a couple of days. First time I’ve made a decent loaf of bread in years of attempting sourdough (which just hates me).

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Youve made my day, thanks!!

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thanks for this, Wil!

I am absolutely going to try this. I have a starter that is about 12 years old now (I had one for some years prior to that but it died beyond any possibility of resurrection when I was traveling a lot and someone (who must remain anonymous) in our two-person/two-dogs/two macaws home killed it (it was not a dog or parrot btw…), but I nevertheless just love experimenting with bread — the flours, methods, hydration, baking temps, everything! — and share your desire for some bread that is airy and light without having to end up full of big holes - really, I have been trying for some satisfying level of lightness, so you can see why this appeals

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and also the new kitchen looks really cosy (not wrt space but experiential cosy!)

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Thanks Jack.

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Excellent post Will, the little video great too. Thank you for posting this, I’m getting up now to make the poolish

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Thanks so much. Hope it works as well for you as it does me. Let me know if you have any questions!!

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Thanks Will, it’s made and in an unairconditioned bedroom, which in tropics means it’s pretty warm in there.

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Have tried so many times to make sourdough! Fail, fail, fail. I’ll try this instead.🤔

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I love this technique. Hope you do too . please let me know how it goes!!!

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Exactly what I need, thank you!

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Thanks for sharing! I have a question. Is the 12-16 hours for the poolish at room temperature or refrigerated?

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Room temp.

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Thank you for sharing this recipe. Very delicious!

I used rice flour for the banneton. No sticking :-)

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You're very welcome, Peter. And I'm so glad it worked well for you. Thanks for the message and for your support of my newsletter. It makes all the difference!

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Finally a bread recipe I think I can tackle without dying of impatience! Also what a lovely Otto-is he a spitz?

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Ah, thanks Anna. Let me know how you get on with the recipe and technique. and yes, little Otto is a mittelspitz. A very small mittelspitz, almost a kleinspitz.

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I love making a poolish- mainly because i usually decide I want to make bread far too late in the day so doing it this way actually makes me feel I have committed to it. Also like you said, the dough is easy to handle and not like some of those high hydration jobs that you have to scrape off your hands, the worktop, the cat, the kitchen door handle etc.

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My sourdough starter is still sluggish after an extended holiday so I’m thinking this is the way to go while it recovers some oomph! And the water spray and cornflour tip I’m definitely going to try.

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This gives me an idea. If you have a sluggish sourdough, but still want to make some great bread, perhaps a poolish "enriched" with a few tablespoons of sluggish sourdough discard...? Hope you like the method Julia!!

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Brilliant idea Wil! I’ll give it a go.

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My first everyday bread technique was the Jim Lahey no-knead, which starts like this, with a poolish. It's such a great technique, though I moved away from no-knead to a sort of modified Tartine stretch-and-fold method ... and like you, I do not like big holes! I want BREAD to put my butter on! Thanks for this, need to start a new loaf today anyhow, so I'll take a gander at this recipe ...

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I hope the method helps. I'm a big fan, and if you're comfortable with stretch and fold you could definitely increase the hydration of this recipe.

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Ooh. I'll play with that!

We finally have a bakery in town, but I'm not a fan of their everyday breads. So, I'm still making my own (they do a good baguette though!)

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Because my maths is a joke, an easy way I increase the hydration from 62% (as in the recipe) to around 70% is just to add 100g not 150g of flour to the poolish on day two. Makes a really nice bread. A little bit more open but not so much the butter goes missing.

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Laughing in my maths are a joke as well!

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Thank you for this recipe. I’ve given up on sourdough as I just don’t use it enough. I made the poolish yesterday and the bread this morning. The flavor was lovely. The cornstarch in the banetton was brilliant. Thanks for that. It’s going to be the perfect accompaniment to the soups I’ve been making lately.

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Hey Kit, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! And I'm with you on that cornstarch tip. It made everything so much easier from the first time I tried it as well.

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