make 8 x 210g Baguettes with poolish
MAKE POOLISH THE DAY BEFORE
250g organic bread flour 250g bottled/filtered water big pinch yeast
Mix into as thick batter Cover with cling film
Leave out over night for 16-24 hours on the kitchen worktop
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MAKE DOUGH
500g pre-ferment poolish 400g filtered/bottled water 750g organic bread flour 7g fast action yeast 18g salt 1650g total
Add poolish to large bowl Add water and mix with the poolish until smooth Add the dry ingredients
Mix into rough dough Tip onto work surface Knead lightly Place into lightly oiled container Autolyze/rest for 30 minutes
Do 2-3 stretch and folds at 30 minutes intervals The dough is ready when it looks like a large pillow
Tip out onto well floured work surface Weigh into 210g pieces mould into small rounds place into container Rest for 10 minutes Mould into loose oblong shapes place into container Rest for 15 minutes
Shape into baguettes
Place seam side up in a well floured couche Cover and leave to rise for 45-60 minutes check at 30 minute intervals
Lightly oil baguette trays Gently lift the dough from the couche using board Place the dough seam side down in baguette trays Score the dough
Bake with steam at 230C / 210C fan for 30 minutes
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bakers percentages Total four = 750 + 250 = 1000g flour Total water = 400 + 250 = 650g water 650/1000 = 0.65*100 = 65.0 bakers % = 65% hydration
What's wrong with your tap water since you're using bottled?
I have always used either filtered or bottled water for my baking.
All bakeries I have worked at use filtered water.
The chlorine and chloramine in tap water are not good for natural yeast and will kill it. Not that good for drinking either.
I used to keep fish some 20-30 years ago.
The process back then to top up your aquarium, was to fill a bucket with tap water, and leave it for 24 hour for the chlorine to evaporate.
This changed with the introduction of chloramine and you now need specialist chemicals to remove the chloramine.
The introduction of chloramine into our tap water here in the UK came about 30 years or so ago, when a London hospital was overwhelemed with its patients dying of water bourne diseases.
Initially they could not work out what was causing it. They eventually found that the culprit was the water storage tank on the roof of the Hospital that supplied its water. The stagnant water had developed all sorts of bacteria and viruses.
So they introduced chloramine.
Generally though, I do not trust any privatised water company here in the UK. They are more concerned with profits than providing clean water.
I personally have a black staining sludge forming in my toilet cistern and in the outlet of my taps. It is not clean water.
So I always only use filtered water for everything.
Oh, you're from the UK. Makes sense that you have heavily chlorinated water, exactly because of those attic water tanks.
In Finland where I'm from, the water is also chlorinated of course but not enough to cause any problems with baking.
Minerals can interfere with the yeast colony, so you want to use filtered water for poolish and sourdough starter.
Learned that off of YouTube earlier this week in a how to make your own sourdough starter video.
And that's simple enough to share here. 50g flour and 50g water in a jar, left out and capped but not sealed. Remove 50% and replace with even amounts daily until you can tell that yeast has made it's way in. Done.
That's new to me. Back in my commercial baker days we used water straight from the tap and had to keep the sourdough starter in the fridge overnight during the summer months or it would ferment into vinegar by next morning. Every country's water is different though.
Beautiful baguettes by the way.
Yeah, it's probably a best practice thing rather than strictly necessary.
And they aren't my baguettes, but I did save this post to try them soon.