Thank you Susan,
Baby steps is exactly the pace we would advice. And enjoying the journey of course.
And in case you have not spotted them yet, these are our other general baking tips :
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…king-tips/

Happy baking!

As bakers, we do consider baking to be an exact science and as such we personally like the idea of measuring everything, even the tiny amounts. Using spoons means you can deviate up to 20% compared to using scales. If you want to be consistent in baking we have found we cannot do without our scales.

Interesting. A standard measure of yeast is 2.5tsp which is 7gm. So that’s 0.7gm per 1/4tsp, or 0.35 per 1/8tsp. A tsp of water is a gnat’s hair under 5gm, so 1/8tsp water weighs 0.625gm. 100 of these add up to 62.5gm. Fully dissolve your 1/8tsp in that and you get 0.028gm yeast per teaspoon. Do the math to get the fractional amount of yeast you want; 4tsp gets you 0.112gm, just over 1/10gm of yeast.
Do we really need that level of precision?

Hello Lucian,
Thank you very much. A good indication would be between 0.5 (18 hours) and 0.3 percent (24 hours).
You can also check out our table percentage that we use for pizza, that is also a good starting point for your poolish.
See: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…gh-recipe/
Hope it will turn out great and your summer will be enjoyable and not too hot.

Greetings from Holland

Hello Ken,
Yes, you can take an amount of flour from the original recipe. A good start for you would be to take one cup of flour and make the poolish with that.
To be honest we are not so ‘good’ with cups because it is not exact, but if one cup of flour is about 125 grams we suggest the following:

So for example if you make a poolish and want to leave it for 12 hours:

1 cup /125 g (amount of flour)
0.1% (yeast amount used in summer for 12 hour poolish)
To calculate 1% of 125g of flour you divide 125 g by 100 and multiply by amount in the table above;
125 / 100 x 0.1 = 0.125 g instant yeast
(for fresh yeast multiply the amount by 3)
If it is cold we would double this amount.

The amount is very, very small, so if you cannot weigh it on a precision scale, you need to guess(timate) the amount like we show in the pictures above.
Use a 1/4 teaspoon for this – which needs to be filled for about 1/4.

Just give it a try and keep an eye on the poolish to make sure it does not over-ripe. Underdevelopment is usually not a problem, because you can correct this in the final dough by a longer proofing period or the use of a bit of extra yeast.

LETS SAY MY ORIGINAL RECIPE CALLS FOR 3 CUPS OF FLOUR HOW MUCH FLOUR DO I REMOVE FROM THE ORIGINAL 3 CUPS OF FLOUR. WHATEVER THAT AMOUNT IS I MIX WITH EQUAL AMOUNT OF WATER. TO THIS MIXTURE HOW MUCH YEAST DO I ADD?

Yes, you can make a ‘straight’ dough with instant dry yeast, without first making a poolish or biga that is later used in the final dough. But this method of first making a preferment like a poolish or biga, delivers in general a much more interesting loaf with better taste and texture and which is also easier to digest.
A great recipe for a straight dough with instant dry yeast is this one:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…wich-loaf/

I am trying to make poolish for 20 kg flour , how much amount of poolish I need and how much amount of yeast should I put . Help would be appreciated thank you so much

As the article mentions, biga is more forgiving than a poolish per-ferment, so it is harder to over-ferment, I would allow it about 16-24 hours. I hope that helps!

Room temp is ideal for a pre-ferment (Poolish), same with most breads that are proofing 🙂 I hope that helps!

Great idea! I like avoiding the need for another scale.

Yes, you can, but every day you need to remove some of the mixes and add equal amounts of water and flour each day for the next 7 days. It will continue to improve. After that, you can refrigerate and add ingredients once a week.