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Biga Bread

Ingredients

Biga

  • 400g flour (100%)
  • 260g water at 35c ( 65% )
  • 0.32g of yeast (0.08%)

Final Dough

  • 100g flour (25%)
  • 100g of water at 35c (25%)
  • 10g salt (2%)
  • 2g yeast (0.4%)

Preparation of the Biga

  1. Mix the water and the yeast, rest for 5 minutes
  2. Pour the water in the flour. Mix with your fingers roughly until the water is absorbed (should take less than a minute of mixing)
  3. Autolyse for 20 minutes - Leave it on the counter.
  4. Mix more with your fingers until the dough starts to become sticky. This should take 2 or 3 minutes tops.
  5. Cover with a wet towel. Do not cover with plastic wrap. It will over sour the dough - it needs to breathe.
  6. Rest for 12h in your oven in proof mode ( 100f / 40c )
  7. If no proof mode, it will take ~14 hours to proof on the counter at ~21c

Preparation of the final dough

  1. Add yeast to the water, rest for 5 minutes
  2. Add salt to the flour, mix well (avoid salt hotspots)
  3. Pour the water in the biga - incorporate.
  4. Add the flour and salt mix to the biga. NOTEL: The order is IMPORTANT. If the mix of water and yeast gets into the salt unmixed, it will destroy the yeast. The bread won't rise.
  5. WORK THE DOUGH UNTIL SMOOTH. The dough needs to becomr elastic. It will be less sticky when getting ready.
  6. If working with a KitchenAid, it's important not to overwork it. The dough shouldn't be mirror smooth. If done by hand, it's (almost) impossible to get there.
  7. Ferment for 3 hours in the mixing bowl, covered with a wet towel.

Proofing

  1. Preheat the oven to 500f, with a dutch oven inside.
  2. After the fermentation is done, shape the bread.
  3. Pour the dough on the counter, dusted in flour.
  4. Fold the dough on itself 4 times. You shouldn’t work the dough this time, it's really just folding.
  5. Pick up a side, let gravity pull the dough down for 5 seconds and fold on itself.
  6. Rotate the result 90 degrees and fold again in the same principle.
  7. Repeat 2 other times.
  8. Once folded, shape the dough in a ball, seams down. this might take a minute of rotating the dough roughly 115 degrees and bringing the ball back. You'll feel the dough get this elastic feel on the surface
  9. Put the ball in a proofing basket, seams down. NOTE: It can be any basket that will hold the ball. Cover the bottom with a clean dry cloth dusted lightly in flour.
  10. Dust the ball in flour, the sides of the basket too.
  11. Cover with humid cloth.
  12. Proof for 1h on the counter, letting the oven and dutch oven reach maximum temperature.

Cooking

  1. Flip the basket inside the dutch oven. The seams will face up.
  2. Cover and immediately put back the dutch oven.
  3. COOK FOR 30 MINUTES WITH THE LID ON. (40 minutes if you like darker crust)
  4. Drop the cooking temperature to 325f and remove the lid
  5. COOK FOR 20 MINUTES.
  6. Get the bread immediately out of the dutch oven and let rest for the 20 minutes on a cookie grill.
  7. Resist the temptation of cutting it right away. As the bread cools down, the moisture is trapped inside and condenses inside the bread giving it that very soft texture.
  8. The crust is also getting hard and crunchy during that process. You will hear it crack as it cools.

Enjoy your fresh bread!