Does anyone make the breads in Carol Field's book that are made with bigas
or poolish that include such a minimal amount of yeast for the biga, with
absolutely no extra yeast added when making the dough with the biga. I
have had failures on everyone of these recipes. Can anyone help?

Dee

Hi Dee,

You and I should team up to bake; I've never had a failure on a Carol Field
recipe. However, most, if not all, of the recipes require additional yeast.
The Como and Coccodillo breads are the only ones in the front of the book
that don't require added yeast. If you are trying to make another bread
from this book with no added yeast, then it's another kettle of fish all
together.

I've made a lot of the recipes, most of them several times. Which one are
you trying to bake and what's happening?

Barry

"Dee Randall" > wrote in message
...
> Does anyone make the breads in Carol Field's book that are made with bigas
> or poolish that include such a minimal amount of yeast for the biga, with
> absolutely no extra yeast added when making the dough with the biga. I
> have had failures on everyone of these recipes. Can anyone help?
>
> Dee
>
>
>

The Como Bread beginning p. 102, and the Como Bread of the Past, beginning
on page 103, the Pan di Terni, p. 114, Bread of Puglia p. 122, do not rise.
There might be others, but these are the ones I recall now.



I have left the Como Bread 102 even to rise 3 days and it finally did rise,
but tasted pretty awful-flat.



I have followed all instructions diligently with the bigas, leaving them to
set various days. I have used variously a mixer and a food processor. I
think her instructions for the food processor might be out of date regarding
how cold the starter should be before you put it into the processor, as the
new food processors do NOT heat up with the new low speed and dough/low
settings. Do you use a mixer exclusively or do it by hand (I cannot do it
by hand because of physical limitations.)?



Even the ciabatta p. 107, doesn’t turn out correctly. It is more like one
big cracker with a teeny-teeney layer of bread inside. I Have made ciabatta
from other recipes which turned out fine.



I was thinking if I could make the previous ones, I would be able to tackle
the crocodile bread. Before I joined this site, I threw all my notes on
these breads I made of Carol Fields’ and put her book in the back of the
cookbook shelf. What a disappointment. These are the breads I specifically
want to make and EAT!





I have used strictly King Arthur all-purpose flour for my Carol Fields’
recipes, distilled water, active dry yeast, taken the temperatures of my
water, and used “real” salt.



Ah, Barry, what to do!

Yesterday I went to the old “Oster Bread Machine,” and put in a recipe for
oatmeal/rye/barley flakes at dough setting, left it to rise another hour
while the stone was heating and it turned out pretty good, but it is will
never be the bread(s) I really want.



Dee

"barry" > wrote in message
...
> Hi Dee,
>
> You and I should team up to bake; I've never had a failure on a Carol
Field
> recipe. However, most, if not all, of the recipes require additional
yeast.
> The Como and Coccodillo breads are the only ones in the front of the book
> that don't require added yeast. If you are trying to make another bread
> from this book with no added yeast, then it's another kettle of fish all
> together.
>
> I've made a lot of the recipes, most of them several times. Which one are
> you trying to bake and what's happening?
>
> Barry
>
> "Dee Randall" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Does anyone make the breads in Carol Field's book that are made with
bigas
> > or poolish that include such a minimal amount of yeast for the biga,
with
> > absolutely no extra yeast added when making the dough with the biga. I
> > have had failures on everyone of these recipes. Can anyone help?
> >
> > Dee
> >
> >
> >
>
>

"Dee Randall" > wrote in message
...
snip
> I have followed all instructions diligently with the bigas, leaving them
to
> set various days. I have used variously a mixer and a food processor. I
> think her instructions for the food processor might be out of date
regarding
> how cold the starter should be before you put it into the processor, as
the
> new food processors do NOT heat up with the new low speed and dough/low
> settings. Do you use a mixer exclusively or do it by hand (I cannot do
it
> by hand because of physical limitations.)?
> Dee

Dee,
The issue is not that the food processor heats up, but rather that the
mixing/kneading of the dough causes the dough to warm. This occurs with the
KitchenAid, commercial mixers and more quickly/dangerously with a food
processor because the processing time is so quick. Roy Basan can probably
tell us what happens to the dough chemically with fast mixing and over-warm
dough. I do know that we want the final mixed temperature of the dough to
be (depending upon source) between 75-80F.
Janet

"Janet Bostwick" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Dee Randall" > wrote in message
> ...
> snip
> > I have followed all instructions diligently with the bigas, leaving them
> to
> > set various days. I have used variously a mixer and a food processor. I
> > think her instructions for the food processor might be out of date
> regarding
> > how cold the starter should be before you put it into the processor, as
> the
> > new food processors do NOT heat up with the new low speed and dough/low
> > settings. Do you use a mixer exclusively or do it by hand (I cannot do
> it
> > by hand because of physical limitations.)?
> > Dee
>
> Dee,
> The issue is not that the food processor heats up, but rather that the
> mixing/kneading of the dough causes the dough to warm. This occurs with
the
> KitchenAid, commercial mixers and more quickly/dangerously with a food
> processor because the processing time is so quick. Roy Basan can probably
> tell us what happens to the dough chemically with fast mixing and
over-warm
> dough. I do know that we want the final mixed temperature of the dough to
> be (depending upon source) between 75-80F.
> Janet

I use a FP for some small batches of dough. The friction of the blade does
cause the dough to get warm, fast. I agree it isn't caused by heat from the
FP motor. You can start with cold liquid if this is a problem. One way to
mitigate the heating is to add the liquid until the dough consistency if
right and then let the dough rest for about 10 minutes. Then you can turn
the machine back on to knead. I let the dough ball rotate about 50 times,
or about 1 minute. More than that and the dough gets too hot.

In my sentence, I should reword it to include "THE DOUGH"

as
> the
> > new food processors do NOT heat up THE DOUGH with the new low speed and
dough/low
> > settings.

Even with the newer processor I have with the dough setting, I do measure
the temperature of the dough not to reach over 80 degrees. So far it never
has.

Thanks very much for answering.
Dee

"Janet Bostwick" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Dee Randall" > wrote in message
> ...
> snip
> > I have followed all instructions diligently with the bigas, leaving them
> to
> > set various days. I have used variously a mixer and a food processor. I
> > think her instructions for the food processor might be out of date
> regarding
> > how cold the starter should be before you put it into the processor, as
> the
> > new food processors do NOT heat up with the new low speed and dough/low
> > settings. Do you use a mixer exclusively or do it by hand (I cannot do
> it
> > by hand because of physical limitations.)?
> > Dee
>
> Dee,
> The issue is not that the food processor heats up, but rather that the
> mixing/kneading of the dough causes the dough to warm. This occurs with
the
> KitchenAid, commercial mixers and more quickly/dangerously with a food
> processor because the processing time is so quick. Roy Basan can probably
> tell us what happens to the dough chemically with fast mixing and
over-warm
> dough. I do know that we want the final mixed temperature of the dough to
> be (depending upon source) between 75-80F.
> Janet
>
>

"Dee Randall" > wrote in message
...
> The Como Bread beginning p. 102, and the Como Bread of the Past, beginning
> on page 103, the Pan di Terni, p. 114, Bread of Puglia p. 122, do not
rise.
> There might be others, but these are the ones I recall now.
>
>
>
> I have left the Como Bread 102 even to rise 3 days and it finally did
rise,
> but tasted pretty awful-flat.
>

Hmmm.

Let's review the Pane di Como on page 102. I last made it on 7-17-03 and
marked it as Excellent.

Starter:
1 teaspoon dry yeast or 1/3 cake fresh yeast. I used the dry yeast.
1 scant teaspoon malt syrup. I used diastatic malt from the home brew shop.
1/3 cup warm water.
2/3 cup milk, room temp.
1 cup (135 grams) all-purpose flour.

Stir stuff together, add milk and flour and beat till smooth. Let stand at
least 4 hours or over night.

My notes to he

This starter is VERY wet:
224 grams water/milk, 135 grams flour => 160% hydration.

**** Comment: The milk may mitigate the hydration somewhat, but not enough
to alter the general effect.
**** I use tap water all the time. We use city water and have a water
softener in the apartment complex's domestic water lines.

Dough:

2 cups water
6 1/4 cups (860 grams) all purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt
cornmeal

Make a dough with the starter and the rest of the stuff.

This is 35 ounces of flour and 24 ounces of liquid, which is 68% hydration,
give or take. This is a wet dough. The malt syrup will add a bit, probably
enough to offset the solids in the milk. This is probably putting too fine
a point on the process.

First rise: 1 1/2 hours or until doubled.

Shaping and second rise: Shape and rise 1 hour, until fully doubled.

Bake 400F for 1 hour.

Discussion:

This amount of dough would normally have at least a packet of yeast, 2 1/4
teaspoons. I remember that I had some question whether the initial starter
would have enough food supply for the yeast to develop overnight and then
carry the whole load itself with just the one teaspoon, but it did. This
may be due to the malt syrup.

As I remember it, I knocked the dough down and gave it another short rise,
20 minutes, after the first rise. I also gave the dough a rest between
scaling and shaping, probably another 20 minutes, although my notes don't
mention either of these. This procedure is my standard practice in most
breads.

Questions for Dee:

Did the starter work properly, i.e., did it bubble and rise and collapse as
it should?

Check your yeast: Put the yeast, a half cup of water, a teaspoon of sugar
and a half cup of flour in a bowl, mix them up and let it sit in a warm
place for an hour. This should just about blow the lid off a plastic bowl.
As an example, I'm testing a couple of batches of starter -- 5 ounces flour,
3 1/4 ounces water, 1 teaspoon yeast -- one with all-purpose and one with
bread flour. The batches have been sitting for twenty minutes and the first
one (the bread flour one) just blew the lid off.

Your comment that the thing was like a cracker leads me to think that the
yeast isn't active or that you killed it somehow.

How warm is the kitchen and the rising place? It's unlikely, but you may
have risen the dough in a place that was so warm that you killed the yeast.
I doubt this, since you can make other breads work.

My notes on the other two, the Terni and the Pugliese, indicate that I
didn't do much differently from the recipe and that the breads turned out
well. I made the Pugliese on 7-31-01, and have written in the Pugliese from
BBA as a comparison, along with a description of the modifications I made to
use the stretch-and-fold technique, which involves two 1/2 hour rest periods
during stretch-and-fold. In the Pugliese, although the dimples are supposed
to keep the bread from rising too much in the oven, my bread went crazy.

Sorry to take up so much time with such a long-winded answer, but I'm
intrigued that something that's worked for me so many times isn't working fo
r you. If these recipes were something new or experimental, I could
understand it, but these are traditional breads. There must be something
going on that we're not noticing.

Barry

Thank you for your comments, Barry.

What do you think about using "King Arthur" (DRIED) "Diastatic Malt Powder"
1 teaspoon. I have on hand also "Non-Diastatic Malt Powder."

Yes, my starter worked alright previously. (It is the bigas left in the
refrigerator that definitely don't work for me.)
****
I'm going to do testing on your suggestion: at 16:50 using this:

I'm testing a couple of batches of starter -- 5 ounces flour,
> 3 1/4 ounces water, 1 teaspoon yeast -- one with all-purpose

My house is 69 degrees.

****
During these biga-making recipes, my house was always cool. When I made the
breads I always feel I erred on the "cool side" because I don't like a real
quick rise, mainly I don't like the taste of over-yeasted bread and that was
the reason for my failures. As Carol Fields says to take the dough out of
the refrigerator and put it into the processor if you are using a processor,
because you don't want the dough to heat up.
****

Your comment, Barry
Your comment that the thing was like a cracker leads me to think that the
> yeast isn't active or that you killed it somehow.

I made a ciabatta (another recipe - not Carol Fields') and used the same
yeast. No problem. But I'm testing it at your suggestion.

***

Will get back to you and the newsgroup.
Thanks for your time.
Dee

"barry" > wrote in message
et...
>
> "Dee Randall" > wrote in message
> ...
> > The Como Bread beginning p. 102, and the Como Bread of the Past,
beginning
> > on page 103, the Pan di Terni, p. 114, Bread of Puglia p. 122, do not
> rise.
> > There might be others, but these are the ones I recall now.
> >
> >
> >
> > I have left the Como Bread 102 even to rise 3 days and it finally did
> rise,
> > but tasted pretty awful-flat.
> >
>
> Hmmm.
>
> Let's review the Pane di Como on page 102. I last made it on 7-17-03 and
> marked it as Excellent.
>
> Starter:
> 1 teaspoon dry yeast or 1/3 cake fresh yeast. I used the dry yeast.
> 1 scant teaspoon malt syrup. I used diastatic malt from the home brew
shop.
> 1/3 cup warm water.
> 2/3 cup milk, room temp.
> 1 cup (135 grams) all-purpose flour.
>
> Stir stuff together, add milk and flour and beat till smooth. Let stand
at
> least 4 hours or over night.
>
> My notes to he
>
> This starter is VERY wet:
> 224 grams water/milk, 135 grams flour => 160% hydration.
>
> **** Comment: The milk may mitigate the hydration somewhat, but not
enough
> to alter the general effect.
> **** I use tap water all the time. We use city water and have a water
> softener in the apartment complex's domestic water lines.
>
> Dough:
>
> 2 cups water
> 6 1/4 cups (860 grams) all purpose flour
> 1 tablespoon salt
> cornmeal
>
> Make a dough with the starter and the rest of the stuff.
>
> This is 35 ounces of flour and 24 ounces of liquid, which is 68%
hydration,
> give or take. This is a wet dough. The malt syrup will add a bit,
probably
> enough to offset the solids in the milk. This is probably putting too
fine
> a point on the process.
>
> First rise: 1 1/2 hours or until doubled.
>
> Shaping and second rise: Shape and rise 1 hour, until fully doubled.
>
> Bake 400F for 1 hour.
>
> Discussion:
>
> This amount of dough would normally have at least a packet of yeast, 2 1/4
> teaspoons. I remember that I had some question whether the initial
starter
> would have enough food supply for the yeast to develop overnight and then
> carry the whole load itself with just the one teaspoon, but it did. This
> may be due to the malt syrup.
>
> As I remember it, I knocked the dough down and gave it another short rise,
> 20 minutes, after the first rise. I also gave the dough a rest between
> scaling and shaping, probably another 20 minutes, although my notes don't
> mention either of these. This procedure is my standard practice in most
> breads.
>
> Questions for Dee:
>
> Did the starter work properly, i.e., did it bubble and rise and collapse
as
> it should?
>
> Check your yeast: Put the yeast, a half cup of water, a teaspoon of sugar
> and a half cup of flour in a bowl, mix them up and let it sit in a warm
> place for an hour. This should just about blow the lid off a plastic
bowl.
> As an example, I'm testing a couple of batches of starter -- 5 ounces
flour,
> 3 1/4 ounces water, 1 teaspoon yeast -- one with all-purpose and one with
> bread flour. The batches have been sitting for twenty minutes and the
first
> one (the bread flour one) just blew the lid off.
>
> Your comment that the thing was like a cracker leads me to think that the
> yeast isn't active or that you killed it somehow.
>
> How warm is the kitchen and the rising place? It's unlikely, but you may
> have risen the dough in a place that was so warm that you killed the
yeast.
> I doubt this, since you can make other breads work.
>
> My notes on the other two, the Terni and the Pugliese, indicate that I
> didn't do much differently from the recipe and that the breads turned out
> well. I made the Pugliese on 7-31-01, and have written in the Pugliese
from
> BBA as a comparison, along with a description of the modifications I made
to
> use the stretch-and-fold technique, which involves two 1/2 hour rest
periods
> during stretch-and-fold. In the Pugliese, although the dimples are
supposed
> to keep the bread from rising too much in the oven, my bread went crazy.
>
> Sorry to take up so much time with such a long-winded answer, but I'm
> intrigued that something that's worked for me so many times isn't working
fo
> r you. If these recipes were something new or experimental, I could
> understand it, but these are traditional breads. There must be something
> going on that we're not noticing.
>
> Barry
>
>

> What do you think about using "King Arthur" (DRIED) "Diastatic Malt
Powder"
> 1 teaspoon. I have on hand also "Non-Diastatic Malt Powder."

Should work.

> Yes, my starter worked alright previously. (It is the bigas left in the
> refrigerator that definitely don't work for me.)
> ****

I've had trouble with stored starters, too. I now make them all fresh when I
need them. (Knead them? <g> )

> I'm going to do testing on your suggestion: at 16:50 using this:
>
> I'm testing a couple of batches of starter -- 5 ounces flour,
> > 3 1/4 ounces water, 1 teaspoon yeast -- one with all-purpose
>
> My house is 69 degrees.
>
> ****
> During these biga-making recipes, my house was always cool. When I made
the
> breads I always feel I erred on the "cool side" because I don't like a
real
> quick rise, mainly I don't like the taste of over-yeasted bread and that
was
> the reason for my failures. As Carol Fields says to take the dough out of
> the refrigerator and put it into the processor if you are using a
processor,
> because you don't want the dough to heat up.
> ****

I've had such varied luck with "remove the dough from the refrigerator one
hour before use..." that I ignore the time and go by the temperature.

>
> Your comment, Barry
> Your comment that the thing was like a cracker leads me to think that the
> > yeast isn't active or that you killed it somehow.
>
> I made a ciabatta (another recipe - not Carol Fields') and used the same
> yeast. No problem. But I'm testing it at your suggestion.

If the yeast works one time then it will probably work another time, eh.

Now I'm wondering if it's just as simple as being a starter that's been in
the refrigerator.

Barry

"Dee Randall" > wrote in message >...
> Does anyone make the breads in Carol Field's book that are made with bigas
> or poolish that include such a minimal amount of yeast for the biga, with
> absolutely no extra yeast added when making the dough with the biga. I
> have had failures on everyone of these recipes. Can anyone help?
>
> Dee
I am not familiar with Carols book.
But your question is related to bakery expereince .
Old time bakers usually use very little yeast when making
preferments.And if you use that fermented sponge or biga, you will
need to subject the mixed dough( the biga already in it) to bulk
fermentation for a one to a few hours before you cut it down for
rounding and molding operation.
That is if the biga or poolish use a flour which is just a quarter or
a third of the total flour used.
If you apply this system like a normal dough where you just give it a
short rest after mixing then divide and mold ,the proofing will be
long and the dough appears squat lookin,close grained and with less
volume.
Another efficient way to use it is make the biga from 60-70% of the
flour and ferment that well.
Then when the ferment is ripe( it recedes from the fermentation
container) add the remaining flour with the rest of the ingredients
and make a dough.
Give it a floor time of 15-30 minutes then divide it into pieces,
round the dough let it rest for 15 minutes then mold.
Proof properly and bake.
Making biga and poolish with little yeast in it demands that it
should be fermented well.
The yeast level will be in the range of 0.25-0.5% fresh yeast basis.
Some of these new instant yeast do not have fermentation tolerance as
fresh yeast.
Therefore if you apply long fermentation of your biga with little
yeast use the standard compressed yeast as that was designed for such
fermentation process.
Using a rapid rise yeast and many instant yeast will usually result
in poor performance as instant yeast was designed for the modern fast
breadmaking process.It does not have much tolerance to long
fermentation.
Roy

Thank you Roy for your thoughtful answer.
Your answer was a little above my expertise, but I'm sure others will
benefit from it as well.
My best,
Dee

"Roy Basan" > wrote in message
om...
> "Dee Randall" > wrote in message
>...
> > Does anyone make the breads in Carol Field's book that are made with
bigas
> > or poolish that include such a minimal amount of yeast for the biga,
with
> > absolutely no extra yeast added when making the dough with the biga. I
> > have had failures on everyone of these recipes. Can anyone help?
> >
> > Dee
> I am not familiar with Carols book.
> But your question is related to bakery expereince .
> Old time bakers usually use very little yeast when making
> preferments.And if you use that fermented sponge or biga, you will
> need to subject the mixed dough( the biga already in it) to bulk
> fermentation for a one to a few hours before you cut it down for
> rounding and molding operation.
> That is if the biga or poolish use a flour which is just a quarter or
> a third of the total flour used.
> If you apply this system like a normal dough where you just give it a
> short rest after mixing then divide and mold ,the proofing will be
> long and the dough appears squat lookin,close grained and with less
> volume.
> Another efficient way to use it is make the biga from 60-70% of the
> flour and ferment that well.
> Then when the ferment is ripe( it recedes from the fermentation
> container) add the remaining flour with the rest of the ingredients
> and make a dough.
> Give it a floor time of 15-30 minutes then divide it into pieces,
> round the dough let it rest for 15 minutes then mold.
> Proof properly and bake.
> Making biga and poolish with little yeast in it demands that it
> should be fermented well.
> The yeast level will be in the range of 0.25-0.5% fresh yeast basis.
> Some of these new instant yeast do not have fermentation tolerance as
> fresh yeast.
> Therefore if you apply long fermentation of your biga with little
> yeast use the standard compressed yeast as that was designed for such
> fermentation process.
> Using a rapid rise yeast and many instant yeast will usually result
> in poor performance as instant yeast was designed for the modern fast
> breadmaking process.It does not have much tolerance to long
> fermentation.
> Roy