Issues when using preferments

2 posts / 0 new
Last post
Denis's picture
Denis
Offline
Joined: 2019-01-28 08:46
Issues when using preferments

Hello everyone,

I am new to baking and I am experimenting with different things while baking bread. Recently i tried using preferments with the instructions from the SCS podcast 21 and made a biga and a poolish preferment and both times I had the same 2 issues.

The first issue is that my bread bursts open at the entire side and sometimes at other places too. Now my scoring skills are still pretty bad but when I am using the direct method I never had this issue, even when I forgot to score my bread at all.

The second issue is that the crumb looks more dense at the bottom of the loaf and it is quite fragile. I have to be very careful when I cut off a slice otherwise the entire bottom crust breaks off.

The bread recipe i used for both preferments were :

300g  550 wheat flour (AP flour?)

300g whole-wheat flour

390g water (65%)

12g salt (2%)

60g sunflowerseed oil (10%) (only used this with the biga)

I used all of the whole-wheat flour for both preferments with 100% hydration for the poolish and 65% hydration for the biga. I used 3g yeast (1%) for the biga and about 3 pinches yeast for the poolish, i left both for 12 hours at room temperature (around 21°C), let them bulk ferment for just over 3 hours and proofing for just over 1.5 hours before baking at 250°C for 5 minutes, then 210°C for 25 min and 8-10 more minutes at 210°C after removing the loaf out of the loaf pan and let them cool down afterwards for 2 hours.

I would appreciate it if someone could tell me what went wrong.