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A ferment (also known as bread starter) is a fermentation starter used in ''indirect'' methods of
bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
making. It may also be called mother dough. A ferment and a longer fermentation in the bread-making process have several benefits: there is more time for yeast, enzyme and, if
sourdough Sourdough or sourdough bread is a bread made by the fermentation of dough using wild lactobacillaceae and yeast. Lactic acid from fermentation imparts a sour taste and improves keeping qualities. History In the ''Encyclopedia of Food Microbio ...
, bacterial actions on the starch and proteins in the dough; this in turn improves the keeping time of the baked bread, and it creates greater complexities of flavor. Though ferments have declined in popularity as ''direct'' additions of yeast in bread recipes have streamlined the process on a commercial level, ferments of various forms are widely used in artisanal bread recipes and formulas.


Classifications

In general, there are two ferment varieties:
sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...
, based on baker's yeast, and the starters of
sourdough Sourdough or sourdough bread is a bread made by the fermentation of dough using wild lactobacillaceae and yeast. Lactic acid from fermentation imparts a sour taste and improves keeping qualities. History In the ''Encyclopedia of Food Microbio ...
, based on wild yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. There are several kinds of pre-ferment commonly named and used in bread baking. They all fall on a varying process and time spectrum, from a mature ''mother dough'' of many generations of age to a first-generation sponge based on a fresh batch of baker's yeast: *'' Biga'' and ''poolish'' (or ''pouliche'') are terms used in Italian and French baking, respectively, for sponges made with domestic baker's yeast. ''Poolish'' is a fairly wet sponge (typically one-to-one, this is made with a one-part-flour-to-one-part-water ratio by weight), and it is called ''biga liquida'', whereas the "normal" ''biga'' is usually drier. ''Bigas'' can be held longer at their peak than wetter sponges, while a ''poolish'' is one known technique to increase a dough's extensibility. *
Sourdough Sourdough or sourdough bread is a bread made by the fermentation of dough using wild lactobacillaceae and yeast. Lactic acid from fermentation imparts a sour taste and improves keeping qualities. History In the ''Encyclopedia of Food Microbio ...
starter is likely the oldest, being reliant on organisms present in the grain and local environment. In general, these starters have fairly complex microbiological makeups, the most notable including wild yeasts,
lactobacillus ''Lactobacillus'' is a genus of Gram-positive, aerotolerant anaerobes or microaerophilic, rod-shaped, non-spore-forming bacteria. Until 2020, the genus ''Lactobacillus'' comprised over 260 phylogenetically, ecologically, and metabolically div ...
, and acetobacteria in
symbiotic Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or para ...
relationship referred to as a SCOBY. They are often maintained over long periods of time. For example, the
Boudin Bakery Boudin Bakery ( Anglicized pronunciation: ) is a bakery based in San Francisco, California, known for its sourdough bread (trademarked as "The Original San Francisco Sourdough"). The bakery is recognized as the "oldest continually operating busi ...
in San Francisco has used the same starter dough for over 150 years. A roughly synonymous term in French baking is ''levain''. *''Mother dough'' often refers to a sourdough, and in this context the term ''starter'' often refers to all or a piece of ''mother dough''; however, ''mother dough'' may also refer to a first-generation yeast sponge; so the process used in relation to the ingredients and fermentation times is important to understanding yeast versus sourdough methods. A roughly synonymous term used in French baking is ''Chef''. *Old dough (''pâte fermentée'') may be made with yeast or sourdough cultures, and in essence consists of a piece of dough reserved from a previous batch, with more flour and water added to feed the remaining flora. Because this is a piece of old dough, it has the typical ingredient of salt to distinguish it from other pre-ferments. Once old dough had rested for an additional 10 hours of age, the French named it ''Levain de Chef''.


History

The common, but undocumented, origin given for the term ''poolish'' is that it was first used by Polish bakers around 1840, hence its name, and as a method was brought to France in the beginning of the 1920s. "Poolish" however is an old English version of "Polish", whereas the term seems to be most used in France (where "polonais" is the word for "Polish"). Some nineteenth-century sources use the homophone "pouliche", a French word that typically means a filly. With either spelling, the term only appears in French sources towards the last part of the nineteenth century. There is not currently any credible explanation for the origin of the term.


Use

A ferment is easy to make and usually consists of a simple mixture of
wheat flour Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ''bre ...
,
water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as ...
, and a leavening agent (typically
yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constit ...
). Two schools of thought exist regarding the inclusion of salt or sugar. They both act to inhibit or slow yeast growth, as determined by time to proof or rise, See Figures 3.13 & 3.14. so they are not usually included and instead are added to the final dough. Ultimately, the amounts of each ingredient, and when they are added, depend on pre-ferment and final-dough formulas. In some countries (mainly Eastern Europe, Baltic and Nordic countries) rye flour is also used to make a starter. Traditional Finnish rye starter consists of only rye flour and water, no sugar or yeast. Some might also use yogurt to help hasten the starter to rise. A flour-to-water ratio of 1-to-1 results in a relatively fluid ferment. Stiffer doughs such as 2-to-1, may also be used. After mixing it is allowed to ferment for a period of time, and then is added to the final
dough Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavenin ...
as a substitute for or in addition to more yeast. There are distinctly different ''brew'' types of pre-ferments designed for computer-controlled bakeries that use a rather different series of ingredients, including oxidizers, needed for continuous dough-production processes. Fermentation is sometimes performed in a warm place, or a humidity- and temperature-controlled environment. Cooler-than-room or refrigeration temperatures decelerate growth and increase the time interval, while slightly warmer temperatures accelerate growth and decrease the time interval. Too warm a temperature slows growth, while even higher temperatures will kill the yeast. Death of the yeast cells occur in the range of . When cooling a levain or sourdough pre-ferment, if the dough temperature drops below it affects the culture and leads to the loss of a particular aroma in the baked bread. To allow room for the pre-ferment to rise, the ingredients are mixed in a container at least four or five times their volume. This is about the point in time when some process similarities of yeast pre-ferments to sourdough or levain starters begins to diverge. The typical amounts of time allotted for the yeast pre-ferment period may range from 2–16 hours, depending on the dough's temperature and the added amount of viable yeast, often expressed as a bakers' percentage. Spontaneous sourdough starters take, at a minimum, several days, and are subject to many variables. To make a sourdough starter from scratch, the minimum-needed ingredients are flour, water, and time. This starter is maintained with daily feedings or refreshments of fresh flour and water or, new dough. It ferments at room temperature until the desired age or minimal number of refreshments, following a refreshment schedule that may include acceleration of time intervals leading into the final dough, then is added to the final dough. When maintaining a starter's existing weight, it is advised to discard 60% (or more) of the starter, replacing that discarded dough with new dough. If an increased amount of starter is required, simply add new dough. 40-parts-to-60-parts of old-dough-to-new-dough by weight, or 2-to-3, is known as the back-slopping ratio, and changes to that ratio change the pH of the just-refreshed dough. To make a ''primary-culture levain'', Raymond Calvel used salt, but less of it than would be typical for many final-dough formulas.


See also

* Proofing (baking technique) *
Straight dough Straight dough is a single-mix process of making bread. The dough is made from all fresh ingredients, and they are all placed together and combined in one kneading or mixing session. After mixing, a bulk fermentation rest of about 1 hour or long ...


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferment Baking Breads Leavening agents Cooking techniques fr:Levain