Sourdough - Flopped Classic French with Poolish: A Timeline

Poolish and Autolyse

1/24: 1:00 PM Poolish - Don't read this. It was a flop. 

500 g flour + 500 g water+ .5 g yeast

Finalize Ingredients

Poolish after 23 hours. It was bubbly and slick. Slimy really. 

1/25: 12:00 PM (23 hours)

308 g water to poolish

(100 g flour + 500 g whole wheat flour + 24 g salt + 4 g of yeast) + hydrated poolish

Very sticky and dense. 

mix and rest 20 minutes

Stretch and Fold

1/25: 

Stretch and fold 6-8 times every 20 minutes for 60 minutes

1st: 12:27

I forgot to wet my hands. 

2nd: 12:52

3rd:   1:14

4th:   1:35

5th:   1:55

Wow! What a change over time! The dough became much less sticky, becoming silky and spongy.

Rest

1/25 2:00-4:00 

Rest two hours. This is what it looked like after two hours. 

Proof

1/25

Proof 60-90  minutes. It is MUCH bigger than I thought it would be. Much bigger. Feels TOO big. 

I prepared a banneton, highly floured. 

1/25 - 4:12 Then I shaped the dough and plopped it in there. Now we wait until it rises again. I feel like I dropped it in the bowl too roughly. We shall see in 60-90 minutes. 

Preheat and Prepare

1/25 5:15

Preheat oven to 500

Add stone and heat 30 minutes

Well, that was stinky. I used my pizza stone. It was oily, smoked, and dripped down into the oven. We wiped up the stone and covered up the burnt stuff with salt. 

Bake and Cool

1/25

This is what it looked like after proofing for an hour and 15 minutes. 

Invert proofed loaf onto stone

Score

We read that the score needs to be pretty deep. I made three passes. 

Cover with bowl

Bake at 500 for 30 minutes covered We took the bowl off at 6:24 to find...such a disappointment. 

Bake at 500 for 20-25 minutes uncovered (should reach internal temp of 195 F) It's a horrible failure. A giant flat crouton. 5:56. 

Cool 30 minutes

Recipe

https://www.billyparisi.com/classic-french-boule-recipe-with-poolish/