There's no need to 'pre-ferment' bread dough at home

[@PaulDavids]

Loafs made with poolish tend to have that buttery flavor and beautiful crispy crust as opposed to the fully fermented loafs. On the flipside they are less tangy and fruity/acidic and they become stale sooner. IMO using poolish is great for baguettes and ciabatta style bread.

[@bradleyharper1586]

Can’t not read this in your voice bud

[@AMTunLimited]

Absolutely loving seeing my favorite guitar creator (and one of my favorite guitarist) in the comments of one of my favorite food creators. I don't think I'd mind seeing a bread making video every once in a while lol

[@shalaq]

Regards from a pro baker who plays drums who watches your vids in order to be a better overall musician ;)

[@Exderius]

Hello Paul! Cool to see that you watch Adam Ragusea! Baking and music are some beautiful passions. Please make a bread recipe vid on your channel ❤️

[@delinquense]

Next thing you know we'll see Ragusea laying down some mean riffs and licks... After all, he's already got rockstar hair. What more could there possibly be to it.

[@tzamboiv]

If you're an apartment dweller like me with a tiny fridge, countertop preferments can be very helpful. My fridge space is the limit factor for a lot of my bread baking projects. But when I'm baking bread while visiting my parents in the suburbs who have two fridges, it's an entirely different story

[@Richard_Jones]

I usually make bread on a friday evening for baking on Saturday morning. Always out of the fridge, even in warm weather, great results.

[@MarkizVonSchnitzel]

You can also preferment 100% of the flour. Just use less yiest. Check out @chainbaker, he has ALL the possible combinations of perferments, cold ferments etc in a very understandable form.

[@tzamboiv]

@@MarkizVonSchnitzel have to check that out. highest i've gone personally is like 90%, going 100% sounds very convenient

[@MurcuryEntertainment]

Tell me about it! I literally built 7 foot of countertop in my apartment to compensate for my tiny 1960's galley kitchen.

[@hxhdfjifzirstc894]

@@MurcuryEntertainment Built a countertop? You can have a kitchen workbench table delivered to your house for like $200, from Amazon. I'm planning on getting one, and maybe a freezer to fit underneath.

[@BrianLagerstrom]

I’ll have to give this same setup a trial and see how it comes out! I’ve been indoctrinated in the preferment lifestyle for years now and still supporter that technique IF you want to achieve certain aesthetics and a predictable outcome…BUT for the home cook, for a rustic ciabatta type thing!? I think I’m with Rags here. Also when is Rags and Lags podcast getting started? This isn’t a joke.

[@mmakeion7358]

wait why hasn't this podcast happened yet

[@aaronkessler4949]

Can we get this podcast???

[@VinceKully]

+1

[@LeastTresCharLargo]

How did it go? Did you make a ciabatta or another thing? I've been thinking about this for yeast rolls...

[@kadendzwir915]

Do you have a video on this?

[@kevintesher1374]

This is a strange way to make beer

[@ravin6771]

Beeread

[@adamw1331]

I wish I had 100 likes to tell u how funny this comment is.

[@wesleyraphaeljr]

Lol!!!!

[@blackjack2526]

Absolute Bapir moment

[@annabea7692]

👊

[@emanuelhess9909]

I do both (use a 25% preferment and age the dough in breadbaskets in the fridge for a night - bake straight out of the fridge) and the flavor is amazing.

[@user-a9or7j1dpjz]

I'd be so interested to see you talk about baking bread with 100% whole wheat. It's such a challenge. Maybe see if you can interview someone at the WSU Bread Lab.

[@jaredcx]

go cougs

[@azula-chan4897]

​@@jaredcxgo cougs!!

[@sean3games]

As a person who has worked as a professional baker for 12 years, I can tell you 100% WW is not actually that hard, there are quite a few things you can do to make the process much easier. If you have any specific problems with baking 100% WW feel free to message me with those problems and I might be able to clear up what you find difficult. I will share that the #1 problem with baking 100% WW is usually the flour itself, industrial roller milled flour has much larger bran particles, which can complicate things for people without a lot of experience with it. This is handled primarily two ways I can think of off the top of my head. Both these methods assume you want dough same day or next day with as little effort as possible. There are other methods, that take more understanding and these 2 methods assume standard roller milled flour. 1--ascorbic acid, crystalline vitamin C is often used as a dough conditioner, and will greatly improve any WW dough, however it is VERY hard to add the TINY amounts you need for a single loaf in a home bake, as often times a pinch is good enough for 100Lbs of dough. For 1 or 2 loaves you would have to use the TINIEST of pinches. 2--Mixing the living hell out of it. Mix it till the dough has a glossy sheen. This is not really something you can do by hand, a machine is needed. Also standard dough hooks are not really good for this, a dough spiral is much more practical. These methods are not my preferred method, but are industry standards for high production environments, and do work in the home. They can also be combined. Again, feel free to send me a message, or respond here, to ask any questions. I am more than happy to help.

[@user-a9or7j1dpjz]

@@sean3games thanks for the tips, I'm going to try more kneading next time. I've had some good results with locally milled Red Fife Whole Wheat, but yes the bran seems especially large. I use 0.1% IDY, 85-90% hydration, 2% salt, some vital wheat gluten, stretch and fold every 15min for 45min, then I throw it into my icy garage and keep doing stretching and folding until it looks great. Then it sits for about 18-24hr, at which point it dips below 4°C so I take it out and leave it in my kitchen to finish the first rise. Shape and leave it for hours to double in size again, then bake. Started with awful results that would barely fill half my loaf pan, now it looks like an actual loaf of bread. Yet it's still so far off from what I see King Arthur, The Bread Lab, or just random KZbinrs making. Seems like my gluten development is always a bit lacking, and my crumb is always a bit wet feeling even though it cooks to 200°F and I leave it to cool overnight before cutting. Sure is tasty though.

[@sean3games]

@@user-a9or7j1dpjz I will share with you my home baking method for 100% WW. This might be a lot to take in, but its not TOO different from what you doing. This might sound crazy, but after reading the first thing that jumped out at me is the 200°F, that is too low. you want to bake to 206-8 ideally. This will improve crumb texture. Ok, so first thing would be an autolyse, I don't see you mention one. This is done by taking all of the flour, all of the yeast, none of the salt, and usually but not always all the water. Adam does an autolyse with the salt, this works fine with white AP or bread flour, but not well with WW in my experience. Letting it fall to 4°C is prolly a bit much, unless you don't have space in your fridge. Your garage is gonna be different temps all the time, unless its super well insulated, and this would make repeatability hard. Yeast become significantly more inactive below 40°F or about your 4°C 1-- Your yeast and slat amounts are fine, no need to change those right of the bat.. I don't like to use vital wheat gluten, but that is also a common thing that helps with lower quality flour. 2--I would take all my flour and if using 90% hydration, 85% of that for the autolyse and 5% to mix in with the salt after 60 minutes. 3--Here is the tricky part mixing in the salt, we save some water to help ease it into the dough without tearing up all the work the autolyse did. Just massage it in by hand, or a utensil of your choice. 4--after incorporating the salt, you can do 2 things, fold as you usually would, ever 20-30 mins 2-3 times(every 15 mins is too quick for WW flour), at which point I would shape the dough to let proof in the fridge overnight(meaning for at least 12ish hours, actual time depends on proof time of dough, which you can change with less/more yeast or less/more time. Yup shape the dough before you fridge it, that way you can dump it right into the preheated Dutch oven. If you use a loaf pan, follow your normal shaping procedure and ignore the next paragraph. If you don't have a basket, a well floured tea-towel(or any towel that's not terry-cloth) and a bowl of whatever size you need works fine. I recommend rice flour for either a basket or the towel, as it will make the process SO much easier. (also to help the dough from drying out too much, I store the whole loaf bowl/basket and all, inside a plastic grocery bag. this is relevant to step 5. 5--Telling if the dough is ready. This is as you know probably the hardest part of baking bread. And something I cannot really teach you easily over written words, but can try. The best way, even with all our modern tech is still the poke test. If you dough is sticky, dip you finger in flour first. You want to poke the dough with only enough force to create an indent. If the indent pops back up really fast, not ready. If it does not pop back up at all, over proofed(and likely the problem with Adams slight gummy loaf). You want to see the indent pop back up in a steady slowing fashion. Changing the time after shaped out of the fridge, or the amount of yeast you use. Change either on of these variables to alter proof time. Only one at a time though, changing multiple variables at once is not advised. 6--Oven temp. Assuming you have a normal home oven preheat the oven to as hot as you can go. Outside color of loaf is your choice, so long as you reach internal temp, If normal loaf pan, spray or brush water onto top of loaf, score and put into oven. Reduce temp to 450°F bake for 30 mins, dump out of pan and turn upside-down to finish baking until y our at internal temp. If dutch oven dump bread into dutch oven, score, cover, bake for 30 mins then uncover to crisp crust and get internal temp. Cool for 2hrs before cutting, usually take about that long for all the starch to reform completely. The reason you want to get to 206-8°F is to make sure ALL the starch in the loaf gelatinizes, this is what creates the creamy texture people so often chase after.

[@saboo480]

Hey Adam! I have a little tip for mixing a pre-ferment with extra flour/water. When I started baking sourdough during the pandemic, I ran into the same issue but soon discovered that I could *dissolve the pre-ferment into the extra water first* and then add the flour afterwards which made mixing it all a breeze. The added benefit for baking sourdough is that if you pour your starter into a bowl with water in it already, you can check to see that it floats (is active enough) before getting the flour involved. I hope you get to try this next time to see if it helps simplify things!

[@JohnDlugosz]

Good idea! That's is an easy way to make sure things are completely mixed. With lower-hydration dough, it takes _much_ more kneading then you would think. I did a food coloring test and it really required over-kneading to get the color smooth rather than marbled. The existing dough does not want to mix with new flour or ad-ins -- the new material goes into the voids between the existing gluten net.

[@lyn1896]

Just a clarification, if someone wonders, if using a whole wheat starter it might never float. Btw., do you feel the float test is even necessary? I never do it. I just watch for a doubling-ish of the starter and use it then.

[@saboo480]

@@lyn1896 Great question! To be honest no, but it can be fun to see it float :P. For people new to sourdough, however, it might be an easy way to ensure success. That said, I think we all tend to overthink how to make bread but as Adam said, it's been done for thousands of years. The truth is, even with an unfed starter, as long as there's even a cell of yeast in your starter, the result will be sourdough given enough time :) how cool is that! TLDR; Watching for your starter to double works great! With the caveat that some starters may not double depending on the kind of flour you use.

[@pyromantis]

@@saboo480 I've been making sourdough bread loaves for almost 2 years now, and personally, I've never used the float test. Many times, my sourdough discard always fails the float test, but I still get fantastic bread. To my knowledge, if your starter is actively restarting from literally the smears on your jar then you should have no trouble. This idea that you have to have a fully leavened sourdough starter to make bread is so strange to me. Maybe it's more important with dutch oven style round bread and explosive rise in the intense 500*F heat, but I've used my refrigerated sourdough discard for that too. Sourdough is fun, I bet we can all agree.

[@saboo480]

@@pyromantis I think you may have missed my second comment but I totally agree with you and love the scrapings method :) happy baking my friend!

[@SpencerCDS]

I've learned so much from this video, but the best thing I learned is that Adam has stellar taste in music.

[@nikhilitty]

Kickapoo plays in the background

[@Ali-bw5sl]

Time stamp...?

[@Eclyptical]

@@Ali-bw5sl 8:50 is a song reference

[@Legomyegoorj]

He was a composition student back in the day, after all…

[@jdiddy069]

jojo reference?

[@OperaTidhar]

Thanks Adam! I've been making all of our bread by making the full dough and letting it rise in the fridge for up to four days. It always come out amazing, practically like sourdough bread. I appreciate your ''doing the science'' for me 😃

[@robinhundt6964]

Instead of kneading the dough in the sink, you can just keep a small bowl of water next to you. Wet hands make dough handling a lot easier, but there is no need to waste water.

[@bkdarkness]

He lives in Tennessee. Water conservation is not a thing on the east coast, it rains year round.

[@surewhynot6259]

Let's be real. A sink running at 25-50% for the < 1 minute it takes to stretch is not wasting much water.

[@Hundredthldiot]

​@@bkdarkness regardless of rainfall, the production of drinking water has an environmental impact.

[@tomwood5896]

Aah but then Adam would have another bowl to wash. He's all about reducing the need to wash dishes!

[@dahahaka]

​@@tomwood5896 Tbf dishwashers barely use any water anyways

[@clawrunner]

preferments are a great way to incorporate ingredients you'd only want in small amounts evenly distributed across the loaf, things like fats that melt at room temperature, different types of flours that you want the yeast to incorporate the flavor of (some people preferment something like barley or rye and then incorporate it into a flour dough later), etc. and are really fun to experiment with, but if you're just making regular old bread then you can skip all of that because it won't make any MAJOR differences in the end. if you're chasing the funky fermented flavor, then just make sourdough

[@ihanba]

It almost makes me think you watched ChainBaker's video about the same topic a couple of months ago. :) He came to the same exact conclusion as you. I also recommend his video about how long you can push the cold fermentation time (he went up to two weeks). Because I'm lazy, I never really got along with the preferment stuff or kneading and quickly started cold bulk fermenting my doughs because of that, and it's been so much easier and less annoying. I'm glad to see that both you and ChainBaker have come to the same conclusion that justifies my laziness. I also tested the two week cold fermentation (it actually ended up being 15 days), and the bread was a success. Gluten was noticeably weakened and the dough was sticky and very funky (and boozy) smelling, and the resulting loaf of bread wasn't very tall, but the crust was amazing and flavour was sour. I've never had actual sourdough, but I imagine this was a lot like it. Currently, I'm waiting for my experimental 3 week dough to be ready. I have a feeling 3 weeks might be too long, but it's interesting to see how far you can go.

[@JohnDlugosz]

I think he's not the only one who left dough in the fridge and documented the results as he took out each container over time. I don't remember who, though.

[@Austin-si]

After watching ChainBaker's videos, I just use his no-knead cold fermentation method to modify all my recipes. It save a lot of time and labor and the dough is much easier to work with.

[@Nesh108]

Any updates on your experiments?

[@mzimmerman1988]

I appreciate this.. I have been doing a lot of bread experimentation trying to figure out how to control the variables. The best part about making bread is that even if it does not turn out "perfect", you still got fresh bread :D

[@CruelusRex]

My man Adam with the Dio shirt. A man of culture.

[@MsTatakai]

oh yeah i just noticed! haha amazing

[@pomo1238]

I always love the "that's a topic for another day" bits. i do hope to see that video when that day comes because i want to make a sourdough loaf weekly to eat and i would love to know what planning i would need for that

[@CelliniCreations]

I make pizza dough for a week's worth of pizza, leave it in the fridge and just hack off the pieces as I need it. I've had it in the fridge for up to 9 days and let me tell you, that 9-day-old dough was the most amazing pizza crust I've ever had. Same works for bread. Long cold ferments are the bomb.

[@terryl.9302]

Yup. Bet grandma did it like that too. Who has time for all this hyper-french nonsense? Once you've got a system going, cherish it. 🍒

[@MarkizVonSchnitzel]

Even if it did not have better flavour, which it does, just the utility and practicality is awesome. It can be baked as soon as the oven is hot at any time of day. Or night.

[@madtrade]

yeah and the longer the fermentation the easier the digestion !

[@WyattWinters]

what percentage of yeast are you using?

[@CelliniCreations]

@@WyattWinters I'm pretty loose with the measurements. For 1kg of dough, I use about 1.5tsp. That kilo of dough gives me roughly 6 personal-sized Neapolitan pizzas, 10-12", depending on how much I stretch.

[@dustinhauswirth3952]

I've been baking from the "Flour Water Salt Yeast" book for a little over a year now. I have been wanting to hybridize some of those recipes with some of your fridge fermentation techniques for the past few weeks! I was debating asking you about that for your podcast but was shy. Grateful you did this video!

[@ShoutButterfly]

I did not know there's a baking version of "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" book xD

[@AnimatedStoriesWorldwide]

A small tip I recently learned, in case it can help someone else: the big bubbles in the middle of the bread is a sign of too much flour during shaping (or stretching, but in your case I know you use the water method :) ). This causes your final folds to not merge properly, which creates cavities/arches during baking (due to the layers being kept separated by dry flour)

[@tomwood5896]

In this case though Adam didn't add any flour during shaping. He barely shaped the dough though, just dumping it onto parchment

[@aragusea]

Bubbles are extra points imho!

[@cinemoriahFPV]

No.

[@goattactics]

The tunnels in the bread were most likely due to lack of tension in the dough, as they were not shaped.

[@jvallas]

@@aragusea Even that oversized hole? I wouldn't see any advantage to that & am glad to read some science behind avoiding it.

[@jakebrace]

Hey Adam, I hope your new video schedule has been treating you well! The videos have only gotten better with you being able to put a bit more time into each. Love the channel

[@franklincornelius9373]

Love to hear you talk about what I have been doing for, as long as I have been baking bread. However, I have been using about 1/4 teaspoon yeast ,giving the refrigerator custody for about 14hr.s and then a roll in the hay with some stretching and a 30 minute rest followed by 450 degrees in the oven for 30 minutes then 12 minutes without a lid ,let cool a bit,then bring on the olive oil. Don't forget the salt!! 1 teaspoon

[@ElvenSpellmaker]

I absolutely love those Anchor Hocking bowls, I'm so glad I imported a load of them from the US to the UK.

[@Fernando-ox5mo]

I really like how straightforward and practical your advice is.

[@alexfurst1397]

Awesome shirt, Adam. Your research is consistent with a number of other foodtubers. I agree there is no "need" to use preferments when baking at home, per se, since the flavor to proofing volume issue is only a problem at commercial scale. There seems to be a serious lack of systematic scientific understanding among professional bakers, so tradition rules. For home bakers, your process and taste preferences will determine what method you like best.

[@voskresenie-]

"Gummy" -- thank you, you've finally given a word to me for the effect my bread's crumb sometimes has that nobody other than me who eats my bread seems to notice. I have made sourdough bread about 5 times in my life and it's not for me, it appeals to me on a more fundamental human level but I live alone and alternate between baking a few loaves a week to not baking for a couple months. I don't want my life to revolve around feeding a starter for something I use so extremely rarely. But I like experimenting with all different variations of flour combinations, hydrations, and ferment times and temperatures. I was inspired by Ken Forkish's FWSY about 8 years ago and it's opened up my world. At this point I mostly don't follow any of his given "recipes" to the letter, but at one point I did, and regardless of whether I follow his recipes or not, I all-too-often end up with bread that I feel needs to be toasted or sliced and let to stale for an hour or two before I get the texture I want in my end product. I always called it "moist" -- which ruined my bread for the handful of women I've dated since starting bread baking... Oh well, now I know it's just gummy, which I'm sure my next partner will appreciate so much more. I've complained before about this aspect of certain breads to people who I've shared the bread with, and they all seem completely confused. I can't tell if they actually genuinely don't notice it and think I'm just being hypercritical of myself, or whether they're being polite and don't want to look a gift horse etc. It's not a matter of the airiness of the crumb -- I've made breads with airy, fluffy crumbs that are gummy, and breads with dense, unpleasant (to me, at least) crumbs that are not gummy. I've asked a half dozen times on various parts of the internet about it, and I always get replies about how great the crumb looks, how that's the ideal whatever whatever, and I know they're just not /getting/ the complaint I have about it. Doesn't come across well in a picture. I'm sure if I watch this video 5 more times I could figure out a couple potential causes of this occasional-gumminess in my bread-making. It almost exclusively happens with longer ferments -- I never have this problem with a single-day fermented dough. I'd assumed in the past it was from under-baking (longer ferments generally correlate with higher hydration, so I assumed there was water not being cooked off properly), but that didn't make a whole lot of sense the more I analyzed it. It sounds, from the two watches I've given this video so far, like the issue is that the longer fermentation is breaking down the gluten, and that leads to this result, so letting less of the glutinous flour ferment from the start will help. But then does the fermented taste get diminished as well? Or can it spread from a pre-ferment to the whole dough faster than the breakdown effect? I guess it must, or there'd be no point in the pre-ferment. I'll play around with this a bit, but if anyone with bread-baking knowledge and-or expertise sees this comment, could you weigh in? A couple examples: - I've followed all of FWSY's overnight dough and pre-ferment dough recipes essentially to the letter, dozens of times, and they always come out, to my palate, gummy (new term for me, as I mentioned, but the term perfectly describes the undesired effect I get). Is there something obvious I could be following incorrectly in the recipes? Or is my palate just broken or hypersensitive? I've tried going strictly based on the time estimates in the recipe and based on the visual cues given in the book, and in both cases, I end up with the same "gumminess" problem. - I've followed (conventional)-yeast-based bread recipes from some places other than Ken Forkish, albeit less religiously, and had similar effects. So I don't think it's just Forkish being a bad baker ( / bad teacher of home baking, since those are, after all, distinct concepts in many regards) - a common dough I make is an overnight ~60% APF, ~40% "complex" flour (some combination of rye and whole wheat) at roughly 80% hydration (I have a rough mental breakdown of % hydration per % white, % whole wheat, % rye, with whole wheat at the highest, rye in the middle, and APF at the lowest). It's loosely modeled on FWSY's overnight whole wheat recipe. It's almost always, to my taste, gummy. If gumminess is a result of gluten breakdown, could I remedy this by prefermenting only the rye portion, and then leaving all the glutenous flour for a short final ferment in the morning, then bake, reducing the time allowed for the gluten to break down? Thank you to anyone who has some insight here. I've baked hundreds of loaves and I get consistently extremely positive feedback, and it's made me question my sanity. I am a bit of a perfectionist in general, and I still enjoy the result, but I know that one of two things must be true -- either I've got a "wrong" opinion about what a bread's crumb "should" feel like, or there's something my friends and family are not detecting/reporting that is still there. Everyone has biases, and I know that I would overrate something a friend served me compared to the exact same food served to me at a renowned bakery, because I'd have higher expectations of the latter. So that's what I think is happening -- there's a defect in my baking that nobody either notices (due to placebo) or is willing to state (due to social pressure). But ok, let's get to a fix.

[@longnailsareok]

I think I have a sense of what you’re talking about, though I don’t think it bothers me the same way. I am far from an expert, but a couple of ideas: Have you checked your oven’s temperature compared to thermostat settings to ensure you’re actually baking at the right temp? Are you baking so the bread has time to fully cook before allowing the crust to set more? AFAIK gumminess is about moisture that doesn’t get released. One potential way is underbaking, another is letting the crust set too soon, which locks in moisture and won’t let it escape. If baking in a Dutch oven, have you tried adding ice or spraying the loaf to increase steam? This would delay crust formation and let more internal moisture cook out.

[@marianokal8767]

I am currently in the middle of developing my own recipe for ciabatta that works for my university schedule. I was wondering whether I could just ferment it all in the fridge at once and was planning on doing pretty much this experiment next week. Thanks to you I can just get to baking some great bread straight away.

[@RaccKing21]

If it helps, here's what I do with my pizza dough (it's kinda Napolitan-ish style). I usually batch ferment in the fridge, anywhere from over night to two days (the latter is much better). If you do it for a few days, lay off with the yeast, they'll reproduce on their own over time. I then pull it out a few hours before baking, divide and shape into balls, and let it rest until I'm ready to shape it.

[@thomaswoodruff4653]

Wanted to hop in to say, love the discussions I’m seeing! Lots of Greta tips, advice, constructive critiques of the video, and general experience. I’ve been getting into bread baking lately and this has given me some awesome ideas to try out :)

[@evandelph8052]

This couldn't have been more perfectly timed... Made some poolish pizza dough the other day for my weekend ski trip. Been thinking about these things all night Adam!! Thank you for reading my mind and doing all the work for me lol Also...YOU GOTTA HAVE THAT FUNK!

[@KalebPeters99]

WE WANT THE FUNK!

[@DeIta.]

WE NEED THE FUNK!

[@northMOFN]

Thank you for this! It makes me curious if, rather than developing a different set of flavors, I could use some sort of preferment to get similar results I do now using a smaller seeding of commercial yeast granules. I tend to bake a loaf two or three times a week, and if I keep the math straight that might just be frequent enough to keep the yeast self-perpetuating. Maybe it'll end up something like a sourdough starter, just jump-started with commercial yeast.

[@thatoneguyy7846]

btw you can long term store yeast (thaousands of years+) by laying your bread starter flat and letting it dry.

[@yuu-kun3461]

ChainBaker on YT also has some videos explaining how to basically let proof on the counter for a bit, shape the bread before putting it into the fridge., then the bread ferments in said shape. In the morning simply stick into the oven.

[@supersammos]

I use sourdpugh as a preferent personaly. I am An educatief baker and also love the funk. If i'm feeling really crazy i use sourdough +like 5 grams of yeast, which give you An insane flavor and makes that crust amazing!

[@jvallas]

I do often use that "old dough" concept - holding back a small (walnut sized) piece of today's dough for the next batch. In the fridge. Got the technique from Steve Sullivan on a spectacular episode of Baking with Julia. I do also add a small amount of yeast at bake-time.

[@nani-y6v]

I just love your videos because you try to reduce the recipes or preparation of everything to it's essentials. If I can achieve 90% the results with 10% the work, sign me in, and you always try to push the limits with experiments I don't have the time or patience to do. Thank you!

[@georgez.9818]

Hello Adam, I just noticed from previous videos of yours, that you have your share of love for a good omelette, so I wanted to share with you a personal, easy to do, tweak for extra good flavour added to it. It goes like this: After you are done with your omelette, you put it in a plate and add to the empty pan a bit of butter using just the heat of the pan, away from the stove. After it melts, add a teaspoon of sweet paprika and pinch of salt, and stir until it creates a foam (no longer than 6-7 seconds, as the paprika burns very easily). Then pour the mixture over the omelette, leaving the sedimented part of the paprika away (if any), just the easily running part of the mixture to be used. And enjoy the omelette with nice and spongy bread like a ciabatta (would be nice) using it to dip in the paprika butter. The taste is just heavenly delicious. I hope you enjoy it

[@HyperactiveNeuron]

Love this. My mom has been making sour dough for decades. She's had a sour dough starter in the fridge since I was like 12. The current one is old enough to buy is own alcohol.

[@nickjoeb]

I'm loving to hear this. I was not looking forward to digging into the poolish, biga stuff. I also don't want to mess with a starter forever. The mix and sit method is the best for my world. Thanks for the systematic research that's good enough for me.

[@xervoo6419]

Got a cast iron that actually fits in my miniature oven the other week. Tried the whole overnight version, and can’t say I got any of the funky notes you describe. Perhaps I had too high expectations given that I’m used to sourdough and rye breads, or the yeast I used was just different (1 tsp of the Swedish equivalent to instant dry yeast (we don’t get active dry)). I may have also left it in the fridge for too little time (around 12 hours over night). It just tastes like bread I suppose, which could be worse. I’ll give it a shot with standard non-dry yeast at some point, and probably add some more salt. And the next one with dry I will leave in the fridge for longer, or add a bit more. That’s the great thing about the setup, it’s so easy to make that I don’t mind experimenting. It’s not like I’ve put in 6 hours and a failed attempt would feel crushing. Frankly, I had a feeling this would be the case, given that I do basically exactly the same thing, at the same ratios with my go-to overnight buns, just that they weren’t baked in one big piece in a Dutch oven, and instead on a sheet with some water sprayed into the oven. The flavour is basically exactly the same too.

[@Danielle_1234]

The first version where the dough was thrown in the fridge over night is called a pate fermentee, which is technically a pre-ferment, just as a poolish is. This video is comparing two kinds of preferment. (And yes you can bake bread that is a 100% pate fermentee instead of the traditional ratio, like he is doing here.) Pate fermentee is how baguettes are made in France. A non pre-ferment, called a cold proof, is when one shapes the bread, usually into a bread pan, then sticks it in the fridge. The loaf can then go directly from the fridge to the oven without needing to touch the dough. It's a preferment because shaping needs to happen after it's pulled out of the fridge. (The stretch and fold he does.) The advantages of a preferment in the fridge is space. A preferment can fit in a small container. A bread pan is quite a bit larger and a dutch oven even larger. It becomes even more of a space issue when making bagels or doughnuts. Me, I prefer a pate fermentee, frozen for a day, then sitting in the fridge for at least 3 days. I make a loaf every 5 to 7 days. The day in the freezer keeps it from getting too funky.

[@JohnDlugosz]

Shaping the loaf _after_ taking out of the cold also gives more flexibility as to when you come back to it. You kneed out the excess gas and rework the glutin.

[@sharpconfit]

buying yeast always slips my mind, so conserving the yeast i do have by making a poolish is beneficial for me. the joy of baking bread is the process, i like to imagine how the bread will taste while I'm at work and the poolish is in the fridge :)

[@michaelwalker4977]

I made a sourdough starter beginning with a commercially yeasted poolish. It took the usual few weeks for the flavors to develop, but it was still perfectly usable as a preferment during those few weeks. I eventually gave it up because I was making *so much* bread to avoid throwing away the excess starter that I put on 20 lbs.

[@jucas19]

As a beer brewer, which mainly uses the same fungae species as comercial bread yeast in fermentations (S. cerevisiae), I've come to understand that flavor and aroma production by yeast is mostly proportional to the amount of stress it goes through when fermenting. Examples: highly concentrated wort/dough (low water content), underpitching (low yeast cell count), temperature (outside yeast optimal temperature range)

[@chataclysm2112]

I love the fact that you got an actual burr grinder as opposed to the blade grinder you used previously. also nice aeropress

[@anthonyantoine9232]

Having very little free fridge space, it still makes sense at least for me to continue with my poolish bread. I do appreciate the experimentation with more yeast, though, because I've been trying to ease my wife into sourdough and I feel that may be the key to it. Also, just the beauty of striking a balance between "normal" bread and sourdough with something in the middle is just awesome.

[@bcaudell95]

Great video! I don't use pre-ferment when I bake normal sandwich loaves, but honestly sourdough is about all I make anymore. The recipe for sourdough that I've settled on is remarkably similar to your overnight loaf here. Mix the dough+starter the night before, stretch+fold a few times, bulk proof, shape, put into bannetons or w/e, maybe proof a little more, fridge overnight or up to 36 hours, pull out, score, and bake from cold. That recipe in my cast iron combo cooker results in the best loaves I've ever made, and it's a routine that actually fits into my schedule.

[@martinbogadomartinesi5135]

I cannot believe Adam bought an aeropress. It's like his coffee journey and mine are almost the same, I've been into coffee more or less at the same time he released those coffee videos at Alma. Now i've got a flair espresso machine lol. Thumbs up for that!

[@AnonymousSam]

Same, I never thought the person who swore off plastic Tupperware would be brewing coffee in a plastic plunger.

[@unit--ns8jh]

I'm still waiting for him to divulge his brewing recipe - for me the basic one from the manual works best :)

[@martinbogadomartinesi5135]

@@AnonymousSam the very first aeropress were made of BPA but according to *proprietary* research there is no leaching from those brewers into the coffee. Anyways, most house pipes are made of plastics, let's not talk about food; if you are already making an effort to reduce plastics in your life, what would a lil' coffee brewer possibly do more than all the other stuff.

[@martinbogadomartinesi5135]

@@unit--ns8jh i brew inverted everyday, it's easier for me to control. My daily coffee is not an outstanding cup tho, just supermarket coffee, but at least it's way better than instant. When I feel I need a treat ofc I grind nicer coffee, but nowadays I mostly reserve that for the flair since it's soooo good.

[@julieament8732]

OMG yes. This meets my level of effort and desire for great bread. Thank you.

[@Xloi63]

I think pre-ferments are still useful if you are making a sourdough recipe. Usually an enriched dough, like pannetonne, is heavier. The pre-ferment helps proof the dough properly. It is easier to mix your pre-ferment with your water first, then add your flour and salt, instead of doing it all at once. And I am begging you Adam, please get yourself a nice dough whisk! Maybe most people don't have them and maybe that's why you use the wooden spoon, but you need to spread the gospel of the easy to use, efficient dough whisk. It is only difficult to clean if you let it dry, and everyone should keep an old toothbrush by the sink to clean their whisks (and blender blades, etc...)

[@Eclyptical]

Of course they are useful for sourdough, a sourdough starter is a pre-ferment!

[@OmniversalInsect]

He's had a dough mixer since the start of the channel, I think in one of the videos he said that he wouldn't show it again because it gives people the idea that you need to have one even though it's doable by hand.

[@Xloi63]

@@Eclyptical xD

[@OmniversalInsect]

Nevermind I searched up a dough whisk and thats something completely different, I feel like a fork would do just as good a job though

[@secondengineer9814]

I do sourdough exclusively. The advantage of a preferment is that it's the only time I need to feed my starter. I've gone months between feedings just keeping 30g of starter in the fridge. Then feed it 100g flour, 100g water, leave it overnight, and put 30g in the fridge for up to 2 months.

[@frankfurter7260]

You can bring a sourdough starter back to life after much longer than 2 months. I don’t know what if any limit in time there is but I’ve gone 6 months. Though it will take more than one overnight feeding to bring it back to strength.

[@Fish-cj4ub]

Every week I make a new poolish and a dough with my premade poolish from the week before. I just do it so that I dont need to proof anything and the dough is ready immediately. It also makes it easier to keep everything on schedule because i have so little free time, I just make and split up a pre fermented dough to use that night and for the next four days as needed then once im done i mix up the next batch just once per week. I do everything by eye no scales just measuring cups/spoons.

[@supersosiska]

Great point! I would argue, that if you don't have much spare time the night before, using a preferment in a home setting might also make sense. Because preparing a preferment takes much less time than a whole dough, and let's you capture those funky flavors 😁.

[@lillysummeroriginals1213]

Yes please do make a video about what it would be like after leaving it to ferment in the fridge for a week. I’d love to watch it I also think it would be a lot easier than making sourdough starter if they taste the same or extremely similar and so it would be great to hear your thoughts and maybe simplify sourdough bread a little bit.

[@davidjohnston4240]

I heat up the dutch oven in the oven while it's pre-heating. I leave the parchment liner in the dutch oven while it's heating so I can dump the dough into a hot environment and put it back in the oven. This helps the bread to raise well and seems to improve the crust. I use the overnight slow fermentation because it doesn't require getting up early. Just prep it the evening before and then the next afternoon, it's ready to bake.

[@lorassorkin]

I really appreciate you doing this experiment! I've been playing around with this too, but I don't have the patience to do side by side tests. Some of my breads I let rise overnight in the fridge and others have an overnight preferments. No more, I'll do them all in the fridge. Thanks Adam!

[@laraleepn]

There were some books published more than a decade ago 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day' that used much this same technique. Mix up all your dough at once, refrigerate, and use what you need for each time you bake. When I was baking bread I used this book a lot.

[@ChaseFreedomMusician]

What if you did that 50% high yeast and added a bit of baking soda into the dry to counteract the acidity giving better browning and a better crumb but with the same funk?

[@gatovillano7009]

at 3:21, the reason you put less yeast if to have a slower fermentation. Slower fermentation = more flavor.

[@mlmmt]

Well, I went ahead and followed your "recipe", dough is currently proofing, and will bake it soon, wonder how it will turn out xD And.. an hour-ish later, I am impressed, for as easy to make as this was, it came out great, probably going to make it again with various things to flavor it, given the overnight rest in the fridge you could probably even get away with dried herbs...

[@kyliejo3]

6:51 I’ve always preheated my cast iron pans when I bake bread in them but I can see that they’re not hot here. Is this something that matters? I would think the pots take time to heat up so your bread would take longer?

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

I've been keeping one of those night-before preferments going for a while now, and experimenting with just putting different flours on it. I think it has sourdough characteristics.

[@soniashapiro4827]

I've been making this bread ever since the first pizza bread video. I make a batch of 5 or 6 half filled canning jars with an 80/20 mix of brown and white spelt flour. It's fine after two days, great after five days, and a bit too exciting after two weeks. It's a total win. Not a good sandwich loaf but it's great for everything else you want bread for. It's great. Thank you.

[@goobiesgamegarage4517]

Feeling more and more like alton brown every day my man. Breaking out a ph meter on bread. Beautiful.

[@jadedelite]

I wonder if you stirred some bicarbonate into the final mix with the high yeast preferment, to jack the pH back up, if that could help with the gumminess while still preserving those lovely funky flavors.....

[@sammyroberts8902]

something ive been doing i really like is a 2 hour flour and water only autolyse before adding sald and years , doing a couple folds and cold fermenting. Crazy good gluten structure with almost 0 work!

[@LNTutorialsNL]

I’m currently opening a sourdough bakery and we are building a big walk in for proofing the bread overnight. Not the same as this technique since there’s no commercial yeast, and bulk is the day before at room temp. Though the flavour development is the same when proofing for 1-2 days in a cool environment

[@JonathanKayne]

I pretty much prepare my dough the same way (mix it all up to begin with) except I use less yeast and let it sit at room temperature overnight. Its a recipe I found from "artisan bread with Steve". I add extra salt to my bread because I like salt though. Doesn't seem to affect the fermentation.

[@rubenromero2241]

Seriously god bless you and that one redhead dude for running these kinds of experiments and demystifying this kind of thing for home cooks like me.

[@MatyasLemberTutorials]

Awesome, very useful. I have been doing bread for some time with sourdough, but this tells me what I was hoping for

[@TheArcSet]

Thanks for this. How do you feel about flavoured doughs? Lots of tomato paste, garlic powder and dried herbs and spices. Maybe an oil spice temper or a caraway rosemary tisane.

[@ryansmith8]

I work in a production bakery and we actually do an overnight ferment at fridge temperature. Our dough gets mixed, shaped up, trayed up on sheet pans or in loaf pans, then gets placed on big rolling racks that sit in a large walk-in fridge for the baker to final proof and bake off the next night. Using our kaisers as a reference, each sheet pan has 15 kaisers on it, and 30 of those sheet pans can go on each rolling rack. Each of our two ovens can fit two of those rolling racks. We could bake off 1,800 kaisers at a time. Burger buns, brioche, onion buns, cheese buns, sausage buns, also go 15 to a pan. Using pan loaves as an example, we can fit up to 120 pan loaves on the rolling racks that are spaced for taking bread pans. So your overnight fermentation method absolutely does work in the context of a commercial bakery. It's just a matter of scale and whether or not the business does the kind of volume that makes implementing that sort of system worthwhile.

[@miduchalan1]

In 2020 when yeast was scarce, I did the keeping the bread going thing after Nancy Birtwhistle shared that tip. Make one recipe of bread normally with commercial yeast, hold back a portion and leave it in the fridge, and use it as the leavening in my next loaf, instead of the yeast. It worked super well and tasted really good!

[@Rob-hh1ix]

Thanks for bringing the funk! Looking forward to the sourdough video you teased at the end!

[@parasharkchari]

So...if flavor is the goal here, how would Marmite or nutritional yeast fit in? I know they won't really give you the rise that live yeast will, but it's been done in industrial applications to give fast-risen doughs and even quick breads a yeasty background flavor/aroma note. Does it merit trials in the Laboratorio di Ragusea to see if it would yield flavor notes you'd find desirable? My guess is that it may not do much for the acidity you mentioned, but it might do something towards those fruity notes.

[@frankfurter7260]

I would add chocolate instead if the goal is flavor. Chocolate flavor. I would also enrich the dough with sugar, egg snd butter. I’d probably wrap the dough around the chocolate too. Call it something unusual like Babka. 😋 However, I would not put marmite in my dough. 🤮

[@halsti99]

great video. i personally dont even bother refrigerating, if i know i'll bake the next day. tiny pinch of yeast, mix the whole dough the night before, ferment on the counter for 8-13 hours, shape, second rise for ruffly an hour and bake. works fantastic, though it is kinda time sensitive. the fridge definetly gives you more flexibility on the schedule.

[@fwizzybee42]

Yeah my most commonly baked bread is a Costco cranberry walnut loaf dupe. Mix everything the night before, leave covered on counter, shape and bake the next day. I’ve loved other kinds of bread but this one is so easy it gets done the most.

[@kjdude8765]

Starting with a small amount of yeast accomplishes the same thing as the cold rise. Slowing down the fermentation.

[@paulgemperlein626]

Would like to see a video or pod discussing Bob's Red Mill sometime. Seems to be a legitimately wholesome company and I bet you could make it interesting

[@akompanas]

One more thing to keep in mind is that your fridge has vastly different temperatures depending on where you put your dough. For example, the bottom shelf in my fridge is about 2-4C which basically stops any yeast activity. This can help preserve your dough longer but it won't ferment much. The top shelf, on the other hand, is almost 10C, which makes my baker's yeast to rise over the top of the container and spill everywhere during the night. I have found that 5-6C are best for me for 24h fermentation of sourdough. Coincidentally that is the shelf where the refrigerator's own temperature sensor is located.

[@BillBraskyy]

Cool Dio shirt brah 🤙🏻 I've honestly never been much of a fan, but that shirt is still wicked cool.

[@puupipo]

8:50 "By the time you hear the next pop, the funk shall be within you"

[@Diablokiller999]

Would like to see a video about wholemeal flover bread, ever did some experiments with that? I know it needs more water due to the grain in it, but as a european I like the more "rich" aroma of that and it keeps you full way longer.

[@vinzenzmay3469]

Hi Adam, I'm a bit worried over what you call autolyse here. To my best knowledge and my personal baking experience, autolyse best works before adding salt and yeast.The explanation I remember is that the hydrophobic parts of the gluten are pushed together if you add water (agglutination). If you add salt beforehand, then the dissolved ions can coat these hydrophobic parts of the gluten which makes it necessary to knead the dough to add sufficient mechanic energy to overcome these 'coats'. I think the salt works like a buffer there, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure how much of an effect yeast has in all of this, but I can imagine that some enzymes might take similar effects. How about you try this? It would be an amazing experiment, at least for me :) Thank you for all the amazing content.

[@kjdude8765]

While possibly not a perfect Autolyze, it accomplishes much of the goals. Enough to make it a worthwhile step without the challenge of kneading in the remaining salt (which doesn't really work with this low knead technique).

[@awkie]

He's done a video talking about this called "How an 'autolyse' kneads your dough for you". For what it's worth, in my experience, if it does make a difference to leave out the salt and yeast, it isn't one that I can detect. but i'm not a very precise baker.

[@vinzenzmay3469]

​@@awkie I didn't ever really test how much of a difference it makes. I think I'll do an experiment to answer that question :) Thanks for the inspiration!

[@gatovillano7009]

ok, going to pause at 0:28 and speak my mind: I work for a major yeast company and I bake a lot at home. I tried many methods and I find that preferment is very practical even if you make small batches and I will explain why: Let say you make batches of 500 flour with 70% hydration, you end up with about 800+ g batches. When the fermentation is complete, keep 100 g in the frige and cook the 700+ g. Then start the next batch using the 100 g that you kept in the frige. You don't need to add more dough and the yeast is already active. Keep this cycle up for a while and you will notice that every fermentation is more effective. This is because your yeast is aready synthesizing the specific enzymes needed for the type of flour you are using and there is no lag phase for the yeast to adapt to a new environment.

[@johnquarto]

you mentioned it was a little difficult to mix your overnight preferment with your days water, flour and salt: an easy work around is to add the water first and mix (sort of "diluting" the preferment) and then put in the salt and flour. The mixing is much easier then and only adds about a minute to the work.

[@DavidLeeNCSU]

Mixing the pre-ferment in with the remaining water and flour is easier if you simply dissolve your pre-ferment with the water before adding any flour and salt.

[@Thepuffingyank]

i love aero press! Do you have the Able filter? it's a metal filter instead of paper filters i have found using it gives me a better tasting cup. plus cuts down on the amount of paper waste i create. Thank you Adam for always expanding my food knowledge

[@peachymanaangel]

Making a big batch of dough and keeping it in the fridge and then baking small loafs off through out the week. It works great, each day the bread develops new flavor.

[@imablisy]

This is definitely not the case entirely. Adding pre fermented adds a lot and you can also just do both. When I make baguettes we used patte fermente and overnight fermentation

[@nenebird98]

Bro, I literally just figured this out by trial and error. When I refrigerate my bread it always comes out better. What a coincidence

[@imangry1]

Working in a bakery when we make pre ferments we use some of our starter to start the fermentation. I would agree using store bought yeast for a preferment isnt a good use of time. But if you have a sour dough starter doing a preferment at home would make a difference in your bread

[@jonathanbourassa1381]

FYI... Poolish is from Poland, Biga from Italy and "pâte fermentée" from France. Pâte Fermentée has salt added to its preferment. Prefermenting the dough makes it easier to digest after consumption.

[@PaintGuy]

I've never seen someone use a dutch oven that's not pre-heated for baking bread. I use a poolish for some of my recipes because it works well for my scheduled and adds great flavor. Mixing the poolish takes me about 5min and the next day I can spend more time with the final dough. For some people a cold overnight bulk ferment works better and yields very similar results, but I still prefer the poolish.

[@austinnar4494]

As someone who primarily makes whole wheat sourdough using a starter, I personally have found that making a preferment at room temp overnight gives me better rise the next day. My guess is that the yeast need more help to multiply in the dough than active dry yeast would. I also tend to forget to feed my starter sometimes so maybe it needs some time to revitalize lol

[@nyxstorm8826]

Poolish is maybe my favorite bread recipe. The flavor is very rounded and the crumb is lighter and crispier than other breads I make.

[@christopherbradley6673]

you are a legend and i love you. Please never stop posting

[@JoelRogue]

I’ve tried both the poolish and the fridge method half a dozen times each. Making a low yeast poolish before work and finishing the dough when I get home 8 hours later has consistently produced more volume for me.

[@TheBluestank]

mixing poolish with fresh flour and water is easier if you just pour in water first and dissolve the poolish into it, then add the flour after. That way you are just trying to incorporate two substances rather than three.

[@cnixk2097]

Crinkling the parchment paper is the most useful tip I've learned from you

[@SuperEhima]

You don't have to run water when you're folding the dough. You can have a small container of water to dip your hand into as you need?

[@SauRoNZA]

Legendary shirt! Legendary band!

[@VinegarAndSaltedFries]

To much yeast in a preferment can effect doughs overall structure as over fermented doesn’t have as much air in it and fermentation breaks down structural integrity of gluten. Not much concern for a baker who doesn’t weigh out everything to the gram and care about being super consistent but for those chasing the perfect open crumb consistency it does end up mattering.

[@VinegarAndSaltedFries]

Typically I would dimple a preferment into an Autolyse and not be so brutal mixing them to maintain air because to get consistent crumb maintaining evenly distributed air is a must.

[@abyssaljam441]

The only caviat to this I'd say is if fridge space is at a primium like a share house it's easier to rise dough enterly in the room

[@Callesen58]

I can recommend "easy" sourdough by making a preferment using home-made kefir (Ie, made with actual kefir grains), milk and flour. You can also make "kefir-soaked water" by soaking kefir grains in water in a fridge for a day, then using that water for the dough. Kefir doesn't contain much yeast and is dominated by other bacteria, so you still need to add yeast to the dough to get a proper rise. Supposedly using kefir helps protect the bread from mold due to antifungal compounds and keeps it softer for longer due to EPS (Like xanthan gum from xanthamonas on rotten salad) production in the kefir.