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Pizza Dough with a Poolish

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When is it ever NOT a good time to make pizza?!

Note: This posting is from quite a while back. If you want to know how we like to make pizza now, Check out our latest pizza baking and dough making with our new oven here!

If you are a novice to pizza making or you just want to make a good and quick pizza dough check out our recipe for basic pizza dough.

If you are not stressed for time and are looking for good taste, try and make this pizza dough, using a poolish preferment. A poolish is made in a minute, the only thing is you have to think in advance. You can make the poolish anywhere between 8 and 16 hours before you start making the final dough. The most logical choice here would probably be the 8 hour option: you make the poolish in the morning, the final dough in the evening. You can see in the list below how much, or rather how little, yeast you need in combination with the prefermenting times. The amounts of yeast can really only be measured with a precision scale. This recipe will allow for 4 pizza’s, but can easily be doubled of course.

  • up to 8 hours 0.3 g instant yeast
  • up to 12 hours 0.2 g instant yeast
  • up to 16 hours 0.1 g instant yeast

A teaspoon of instant yeast weights about 3,1 grams. So half a teaspoon is 1,5 grams, a quarter teaspoon is 0.77 and one eight teaspoon is 0,39 grams. So for the ‘biggest’ amount you need less than one eight teaspoon, for the other options even less. You can see why we prefer scales…

Making the poolish

Ingredients for the Poolish

100 g wheat flour / bread flour / 00 pizza flour

100 g / 100 ml water

0.3 g instant yeast (see list above)

Flour, water, tiny bit of yeast, stir, wait a while: poolish!

Make the poolish by mixing flour, water and yeast with a spatula or dough whisk until well combined (about 30 seconds), cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave to develop at room temperature for 8 hours.

Making the pizza dough

Ingredients for the Pizza Dough

makes 4 pizza’s

the poolish from step one

250 g wheat flour / bread flour

8 g sea salt

5 g instant yeast

approx 120 ml water, lukewarm

flour for dusting the peel (semolina flour or cornmeal would be ideal)

Scoop the prepared poolish in the mixing bowl of your standing mixer. Add the flour, salt, and instant yeast. Now add water and knead with dough hook for 7 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and slightly sticky (by hand it will take a bit longer, 10 to 15 minutes, depending on your technique). The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick just slightly to the bottom of the bowl. Transfer the dough to your worktop, very lightly dusted with flour. Prepare a sheet pan by misting it with spray oil or by lining it with parchment / baking paper. Using a dough scraper, cut the dough into 4 equal pieces. Lift each piece of dough and gently form it into a ball. Transfer the balls to the pan and cover with floured or greased plastic foil. Leave to rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the floor of your oven, or on a rack in the lower part of the oven.
Preheat the oven as hot as possible, (most ovens won’t go higher than 300ºC / 570ºF). For our pizza baking we use the Bestron Alfredo pizza maker, it has a stone and two heated spirals and can reach temperatures above 350ºC / 660ºF and works really well for us. We have had ours for many years now, but we understand the newer models have some sort of heat restriction, so may not work as well as our trusty old Alfredo.

Place the dough balls on top of a floured counter and sprinkle them with flour; dust your hands with flour. Take a ball of dough and using your hands gently press it into a flat disk. Now you can try tossing the dough like a real Italian pro but this is a skill that requires some practice (I can’t do it). You can, like most people, resort to using a rolling pin and roll and stretch the dough into a round shape of about 25 cm /10 inches. Now place the pizza on the peel or pan, making sure there is enough (semolina) flour to allow it to slide. Lightly top it with sauce and your other ingredients of choice (start with 3 or 4 ingredients, keep it simple to give the crust a good chance to bake).

Slide the pizza onto the hot stone and close the door. Keep an eye on it and see if after 2 minutes or so it needs to be rotated for even baking. The pizza should take about 5 to 6 minutes to bake.

Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Wait a minute before slicing and serving, to allow the ingredients to set.

Enjoy!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hi

    Today we had some nice Flammekueche with the dough from this recipe. Especially the second batch came out really nice, because I suddenly remembered that it helps to add some waiting time during the rolling flat action, to allow the dough to relax, which helps to make it more thin.

    One question: my semolina flour which I use to make it slide really turned black in the oven (Rofco B5 at 270 gr, next time I will try 300, but will the glas fiber baking sheet. survive..?). This smells not nice. Maybe you have a tip to avoid this?

    Teun

    • Hi Teun,
      The first part sounds really good. The second part we recognize, excess flour that lands on the stones will burn. We actually never bake pizza in the Rofco as you might have read in the posting above, we keep it only for bread, and avoid things like onion etc. Plus we have this pizza baker that goes to a higher temp than the Rofco can reach and gives good result. So we never take the Rofco up to 300 and do not use the fiber sheets at that temperature (we believe the recommended maximum is around 240C).
      We find the semolina that sticks to our loaves does not go dark, but the stuff that lands on the stones does. We always immediately brush out the oven thoroughly after every bake to get rid of it.

      Hope this helps a bit.

      Ed & Marieke

  2. How would this convert to a sourdough recipe instead of the instant yeast?

    • Hi Geoffrey,
      We have to admit we never make a sourdough pizza, but of course it is possible. If you want to make a 100% sourdough pizza dough we would suggest making the total dough one day in advance and add around 15 grams of sourdough culture and leave to develop in a cool place overnight. How much time it needs depends a bit on the eagerness of your culture, because they are all different, but it will be somewhere around 12 hours and even up to 24 hours, depending on the exact temperature of the dough and surroundings. You can also use the fridge if needed. It takes a few turns to get it right, but because it is a flat bread it will be a bit more forgiving than when making a loaf.

      Good luck with it!

  3. Quite delicious, cooked in my wood-fired earth oven in the garden. My wife and friends reckoned they were my best yet…Your website continues to inspire, keep up the good work and happy eating x

    • Thank you so much Adam! And jealous in a good way of your oven in the garden!

      Enjoy the Easter weekend with family,

      Ed & Marieke

  4. Kan je de pizza ook in een Rofco bakken en zoja welke temperatuur gebruik je dan? Alvast veel dank!

    • Hallo Janneke,
      Pizza moet het liefst op een heel hoge temperatuur gebakken worden (300 tot 350 graden). Dat kan de Rofco niet, maar zou je het willen dan dus zo hoog /heet mogelijk. De redenen waarom wij zelf onze Rofco niet voor pizza gebruiken is dus ten eerste de toch te lage temperatuur en (misschien nog wel belangrijker) het feit dat wij niet het risico willen lopen dat zaken als uien / knoflook / saus in aanraking komen met de stenen of dat geuren en smaken hiervan invloed zouden hebben op onze broden.

      Hopelijk heb je er wat aan!

  5. Another question please. When using the Recipe for the Pizza Dough, it calls for “Poolish from Step One”. How much of the Poolish from step One would be used in the Pizza Dough Recipe ? Thanks again.

    • Hello Gary,
      Yes it can, put you need to check the protein content of your 00 flour. There are types with very low content (around 9) but also 00 bread flour with around 12%. The last one would be excellent for the pizza recipe.

      • What happens when you use High Gluten Flour? I would like to know more about hard flour……. This looks like great cracker crust. But I am looking to make dough like you have but less cracker crust and more alveoli.

        any ideas?

        • Hi Chris,
          You could use very high gluten flour but take into account that, depending on kneading and time, the dough might become very elastic and shrink back a lot. You just have to try out different flour types for yourself and see what you like best. The thickness of the dough and baking temperature and time also play a role in the end result as does the fermentation time of the dough. There’s also a difference in the crust using a poolish or not. Check out our basic recipe here and you will probably see a difference: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…gh-recipe/
          We do not make pizza on a daily basis and do not have all the answers but there’s probably some more in depth info on this subject to be found on the www to help you further.

  8. Hi!

    If this is a place to share experiences with bread and dough, I would like to share a recipe I got from a man in Naples who showed photos of a pizza oven built in his garden on his website. The flour I use is usually of a turkish brand: Aytac extra un

    The recipe is so simple that I remember it very easily.

    I call this the “metodo due palle” (“two balls method”) :

    About 24 hours in advance you make two balls; one containing flour, salt and water and no yeast, the other flour, yeast and water and no salt.
    Both balls are equal in weight and hydratation, which is low (50%). The amount of salt was about the same as normal bread (10 grams per 500 grams of flour) I use very little yeast (like in the recipe above) since these little creatures have plenty of time to multiply, resulting in a quickly rising dough at the end. (Its alive!!)
    I do kneed well, but not very long since well, even the non fermenting part will have 24 hours of “autolyse”

    Next day you combine these balls and kneed them together. Important is that both doughs are mixed very well to avoid airless pieces. When it has doubled in size it is ready to use.

    The dough is very elastic at the end, so it takes a bit of time to get flat thin pizza’s, stretching and (optionally) rolling a bit, resting a bit and stretching and rolling a bit again for several times, but I concider that part of the fun. With this dough, and a bit of patience, it is not very difficult to shape pizzas with little or no rolling action.

    Maybe the low level of hydratation seems strange, but I find the result very rewarding. Tasty pizza’s which can rest on your fingertips without anything falling off. Possibly the secret is the fact that not only the biga, which is half of the flour, but also the rest is left for 24 hours to hydrolyse.

    • Hello Escafon,
      That sounds very interesting, we have never heard of this method before. We want to give it a try too and are curious what the result will be. Always a good excuse to make pizza again!
      Thank you so much for sharing and we hope in the near future we will have a better spot on our website for recipe sharing. Working on it…

      Ed & Marieke

  9. I would like to make calzone with this recipe, rest overnight in frdge and bake next morning for lunch. Is this possible?

    I found your site by chance looking for an easy small sour dough starter recipe. Am on day 4 of what seems to be a successful starter.

    Just wish i had found your site log ago. Wonderfully go to.

    • Hi Sandra,
      Thank you and yes you can, no problem! You can make the complete dough the day before and put it in the fridge until the next day. We would advice you to use less yeast in the final dough (about half the amount) because though slower, the proofing will continue in the fridge. Get it out about two hours in advance so the dough can get back to room temperature and is ready for rolling out. We cannot give you the exact times and amounts because it depends on things like your fridge temp and room temp, but it should be very much in the right direction. You can also use the freezer (even after you have gone through the whole process and already proofed the dough), but take into account that it will take about two hours for the dough to defrost and get back to the right temperature.
      Good luck with it!

    • Hi Chris,
      We make a very basic tomato sauce like the Italians do, use fresh mozzarella (sometimes buffalo, but it is a bit wetter than the cow version), white onions, organic salami and fresh oregano from our garden, which we like much better than the dried oregano. Another absolute favorite is fresh pear and talezzio cheese with black pepper of which you can see an example here: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ired-oven/

  11. Thank you for the pizza dough recipe. I was wondering on what settin in the mixer should I knead the dough for 7minutes.

    • Hi Alaide,
      Can you tell us what mixer you use? We can tell you in advance it is a ‘lowish’ speed.

        • We think, if it is a 10 speed mixer you should probably use speed 4.

  12. Hi there,

    I have recently discovered your website and love it. Especially because you keep it up to date. I have just a small question as I am about to try out this recipe. You say to use bread flour/ wheat flour. I have looked in your conversion table of flour types but I am not sure which one to use living in France? They recommend T45 here which should be similar to 00 in Italy. Is that correct? Thank you

  13. Hi,
    I live in Southeast Asia,Wandering whether the poolish can be kept in the refrigerator to develop.
    Thank you

    • Hi Vijya,

      Yes, that is no problem and an excellent idea in your climate. Just make sure the poolish is alive and bubbly when adding it to the dough. You can always get it out one or two hours before using if it needs to develop a little bit more.

      Happy baking!

      Ed

  14. I’m going crazy trying to discover how much 100% hydrated polish to add to a bread mix, say for ciabatta or baguettes. Before I get taken away in back fastening pyjamas can you help? Peter Cotton

    • Hi Peter,
      We would not want to be responsible for that! You can always safely add between 10 and 20% (flour ratio) without altering a recipe (but keep an eye on the total amount of flour and flour and water of course, because you are already adding the poolish so you have to subtract these amounts first to combine your final dough again). If you go to 50% or more you have to know what you are doing and maybe do some experimenting to get a working recipe. The taste of the bread of most straight dough recipes can be improved by adding 10 to 20% poolish, maintaining the look and feel of the initial recipe.
      If you want to try a 50% poolish baguette recipe you can give our easy baguette recipe a try: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…te-recipe/

      Happy baking!

      Ed & Marieke

  15. Hey! You guys have an awesome set-up going here. I have learned so much! I do have a question though, if you don’t mind me asking. I’ve noticed that you say it’s possible to use the sourdough starter for this pizza recipe, and to use 30g of the starter in the poolish – but how about when you’re making the pizza dough? You list using yeast again (5g to be exact) when making the final dough – if I’m substituting the starter for instant yeast throughout the recipe, do I add more starter when making the final dough or is it not needed since I used it in the poolish? Thank you.

    • Hi DJ,
      We would suggest to only use the sourdough starter in the poolish, not in the final dough. For the final dough development you should allow more time. We would suggest to double it, but we also want to add that we never make a sourdough pizza dough, so this is not based on personal experience.
      Let us know how it goes!

      Ed & Marieke

  16. I noticed you have added yeast in the final mixture. I have seen recipes that only use the small amount of yeast in the preferment and call it even. in your opinion, what is the difference in flavor?

    • Hi, we use the extra yeast for speed. So using less yeast will increase proving times and also a taste difference. As with most things, more / longer is not always best. There is always a balance in things.

  17. Great website.
    Can this be made with your rye sourdough culture rather than dried yeast? Would that work? Let us know. Thanks. Regards. H./

    • Hi Hal, no problem, however you perhaps should double the amount of time for the proofing.

    • Or alternatively if you still want to keep the same window of 8ish hours, use quite warm water in the poolish, a room temperature starter, and leave to ferment somewhere that is about 25 degrees Celsius. Then in 8 hours it should be happily bubbling away and be ready to mix into dough.

      • How much of the sourdough culture would you use in place of the yeast? Thank you!

        Kate

        • We would also suggest making the total dough one day in advance and add around 15 grams of sourdough culture and leave to develop in a cool place overnight. How much time it needs depends a bit on the eagerness of your culture, because they are all different, but it will be somewhere around 12 hours and even up to 24 hours, depending on the exact temperature of the dough and surroundings. You can also use the fridge if needed. It takes a few turns to get it right.

          Greetings and happy pizza baking,

          Weekend Bakery

  18. Hi was wondering how heavy is one ball of dough to make the 25 cm size pizza

    Thank you

    • Hello Chris,
      It would be between 125 and 150 grams of dough, depending on how thick or thin you want your pizza to be. This recipe makes 4 pizzas of around 145 grams each.

  19. Hi, I was looking for a pizza recipe with polish and here I found it. Thank you. I will try it very soon. I was also very interested by the method of Noah who works as a “Pizzaiolo” in Syngapore. (I live in London,I am Italian)and I am hoping to start a small (but good quality) pizza place (at the age of 52.. 🙂 ). I would like to ask a question to Noah (hope he sees this): I have tried a few times to refrigerate the balls during the final rising but found that are impossible to work with for the final stretching. I found that they needed quite a long time at 24/26 c to recover… Anyway you can suggest to do it properly please?

    As a little contribution to this interesting forum I would like to mention 2 books that I have found invaluable for me. “Understanding baking” by Amendola and “how baking works” of P. Figoni. The go in some depth in the chemistry involved in baking generally.

    Bye for now…

    Martino

    • Hi Martino,

      Hope Noah will respond and you get the answer you are looking for. But you are right, it takes a long time for dough to get up to speed again after the fridge.
      We also own the Figoni book and it is full of valuable information.

      Greetings from Holland,

      Marieke & Ed

  20. Thank you so much for this pizza dough recipe! I’ve made this four times now — twice for pizza and twice for calzones. It is so easy and so delicious. The crust comes out thin, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. It has become our Friday night tradition.

  21. Hi,
    I’ve tried this recipe several times, and followed the instructions exactly. The dough always feels great, and I have no trouble shaping the pizzas, but it often is a bit tough and chewy after it comes out of the oven. Would this be a sign of excess gluten? Should I try less time with the dough hook?
    I love the recipes on your site. The tartine, sourdough, and baguette recipes make me look much better than I am! Thanks.

    • Hello Tom,
      Yes you can try kneading for a few minutes less next time and see if it helps. The other thing is the oven temp and the thickness of the pizza. You can try to get the oven as hot as possible and (if you do not do this already) bake on a stone. Try and roll it out a little thinner too maybe. The best pizzas are made very quickly in very hot ovens.
      Glad you like the other recipes too and the looking good part, we are sure, also has to do with the hands of the baker!

      Happy baking and happy Holidays!

      Ed & Marieke

  22. I just want to make pizza right after I saw this recipe!!! Thank you for posting it. BTW, after the dough has been divided and formed to ball shape, you said we have to leave it at room temperature 1 hour, so what room temperature is the best for the dough to work? I live in South East Asia and the normal room temperature usually is 33ºC, is it too hot for the dough? Thank you so much in advance!

    • Hello Alice,
      Room temperature usually means a temperature around 21 degrees Celsius. Of course yours is much higher than that. If possible you can compensate by using colder water for both your poolish and your final dough. You can find some more tips on dough temperature here: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…mperature/
      The ideal temperature for your dough and the point were yeast cells are at their optimum is around 24 to 26 degrees Celsius. Of course you can also shorten the resting /proofing times of the recipe. If possible try to find the coolest /least warm spot in your house.

      Hope it works out. Happty Baking!

      Marieke

  23. Fantastic receipe! As a sort of an experiment I have put two pieces of dough in the freezer last weekend. This morning out of the freezer, defrost, proofing…. excellent! So much better than the snackbar, when you are in a hurry.

    Thx Marieke!

    • Hi Richina,
      That is such great information to get, because we have never put pizza dough in the freezer. Great to know it works so well and you are so right it being waaaayyyyy better than going to any kind of ‘snackbar’.

      Enjoy!

      Marieke

  24. Whoa its such a great forum, knowing that there are lots of Pizza lovers here, as i am currently a Pizzaolo in a pizzeria and always love the art of making it from scratch to the final product, I hope i can share some thoughts with you guys, thanks.
    My formula is a 62-65% hydration dough as it works very well if you have a really blazing hot or wood oven, Using Caputo OO flour from Italy, Consists of only Flour, Cold Water( As needed for long rise), Salt, Fresh yeast/dry yeast.

    The Mixing process would start by mixing the water and yeast, followed by slowly adding the flour until the water absorbs before adding again. when flour has been used up, finally add the Salt and proceed on to the kneading stage, make sure to knead and stretch it as far as possible to develop its gluten it will take up to 5 mins, let it rest in a slightly warm area for 2hrs, Then proceed on to shaping into dough balls and wrap it with cling wrap( For Home Use, we do not use this method for pizzerias) and store in fridge for another 10 to 12hrs before using.

    Getting Caputo flour is difficult, the alternative would be to use a flour with a content no higher than 12% and increasing the Water content to 70% for home baking.

    Recipe for Pizza Dough
    AP Flour-500g
    Cold Water- 320ml
    Fine Sea Salt-5g
    Yeast- 1g

    • Thank you for your amazing addition Noah! Great to get this info from a true professional. Cannot wait to try it out ourselves. We will look into the Caputo flour too. The only brand we have over here in Holland (as far as we know) is Molino Grassi.

      Pizza is and always will be one of the best food inventions of all time!

      Happy pizza baking,

      Marieke & Ed

      • Sure thing haha pizzas just takes time to master but through practice you will produce one with perfection. Always love to share and learn as much as well. Thanks again and love your bread tips and videos, really useful and creative!!

        • May be ask Noah, in which country are you baking pizza? Who knows, maybe one day we will be able to taste it…
          BTW we made your recipe (not yet with the Caputo flour) and it turned out pretty tasty! We will be making it again soon and are already on the trail of the flour.
          Thanks again for sharing.

          Ed & Marieke

          • Hey there sorry for the late reply haha as super busy lately, oh i live in Singapore haha pretty far huh?? haha, yup we do have a few good pizzerias right here as Singapore loves Italian food especially Pizzas and Pastas. By the way the pizza dough could be left to ferment for up to 64 hrs, it will taste even better after 30 hrs. Happy baking and always love this website

  25. First time using a poolish to make pizza dough. I could not be more happy with the results. We were looking for a thin crust pizza that would not have a soggy center and taste great as well. Using a wood fired oven the pizza was wonderful. Thanks, Jim

    • Hello Jim,

      So good to hear about your wonderful pizza result. A bit jealous (in a good way) of your wood fired oven!

      Have a great (baking) weekend!

      Ed & Marieke

  26. I have had the experience that when I use corn flour for dusting the dough does not rise in the oven. Has anyone had the same – or would like to guess for the explanation?

    Something else I noticed: leaving about 4cm of uncovered dough around the edges creates a great crust!

    thanks for the great recipe, I make some of these guys every week!

    • Hi Sander,
      We haven’t had that experience. Is there only corn flour on the bottom or also on top of the rolled out pizza dough?
      We do not use corn flour, only a small amount of wheat flour for rolling. The only thing we could come up with is that when corn flour is on top of the dough it could have an effect of pressing the dough down a bit, making it heavier.
      As you can see from our pics we also always leave a rim so the pizza crust can develop, this way you also get different textures from crunchy crust till (possibly) a bit soggy in the middle.

      Nothing wrong with baking and eating pizza every week 🙂

      Greetings,

      Marieke & Ed

  27. Thanks for reply. I like all of your videos and instructions, recipes show how to make breads, pizzas, croissants..etc…I will try to make pizzas when I have the good pizza maker. I ll let you know how it turns out.
    Ivy.

  28. Thanks for reply. I live in California, USA. So, where can I buy Bestron pizza maker? I do not want the one which makes from China.

    • Hello again Ivy,
      I am sorry but Bestron (or the other brand G3 Ferrari) is not imported or sold in the USA at the moment so it seems. I have checked recently for somebody else. You can find these pizza makers in Europe and Australia but not in America. I do not know the reason why that is the case. I have also seen the ones from China and people are not positive about them, so I would not buy them.
      I also found some comments on The Fresh Loaf website about this subject: www.thefreshloaf.com/node/…ed#comment
      Maybe there is somebody in America that can tell us more about it…

      Hope you will get your oven somehow!
      Good luck,

      Marieke

  29. I would like to buy the Bestron pizza maker from web site that you posted in here, but I don’t understand their language. That would be great if you show me how to contact them by English. Thanks.
    Ivy.

    • Hello Ivy,
      Can I ask you if you live in Holland ? I ask this because if you are referring to Wehkamp, where we bought our pizza maker, I have to tell you they do not ship to other countries.
      The next thing I would suggest is to contact them by mail or phone (www.wehkamp.nl/Klant…38;IHC=KSC) and see if they can help you in English (I am almost sure they can).

      Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

      Marieke

  30. Hello Ed & Marieke,

    I have tried this recipe for 4-5 times. I am still puzzled when i try to make it round, the dough quite resistance to go wider round. I have to force it by sticking it at the end of pizza baking sheet. What do you think I have done wrong?

    Anyway I am still enjoying the pizza, many thanks for this recipe. Love to see the big blisters ..

    • Hello Irvan,
      Glad you like the recipe!
      You have to either kneed a little less or use a flour with less gluten because what you are describing is a dough with high gluten development and that accounts for the resistance. Another thing you can do, already faced with such a dough, is rolling it until it starts to resist, then let it relax for a few minutes, then continue to roll out.

      Hope this helps.

      Happy pizza baking,

      Ed & Marieke

  31. What if I wanted to substitute my Poolish starter for the poolish you suggest mixing with yeast?

    Should I just add 200 g of starter? Should it be fed, unfed, room temp, straight out of the fridge?

    Thanks

    Elliot

    • Hi Elliot,
      We presume you mean your sourdough starter? If so you can add 30 g of your sourdough starter to the poolish instead of the yeast. You can use the starter straight out of the fridge and unfed. If you are leaving the poolish to develop for 4 to 8 hours we would suggest using lukewarm water and leave at room temp. If you are using the up to 16 hours option you can use cold water and again leave at room temp to develop.

      Hope this helps, let us know how it turns out,

      Ed & Marieke

      • Hi Ed & Marieke,

        Firstly thankyou for the fantastic website – and also thanks for the products I ordered the other week, really nice quality and I couldn’t be happier.

        Secondly, I am just making the poolish for this pizza dough using your 30gm replacement here and have a question: is your 30g a replacement for the 8, 12 or 16 hour option? If it’s the 8 hour option I might have to (a) make the dough later tonight or (b) put the poolish in the fridge over night 🙂

        Thanks and all the best from Berlin,
        Leigh

        • Hello Leigh, I do not understand your ’30g’ question. In the poolish you can use 0.3g, 0.2g or 0.1g of yeast depending on amount of time. So when you use 0.1g of yeast in the poolish the poolish takes 16 hours. Hope this helps!

          • Hi, in the post above mine you wrote:

            ” If so you can add 30 g of your sourdough starter to the poolish instead of the yeast.”

            What I wanted to know was whether the 30g was replacing the 0.3g instant yeast.

            In the end I refrigerated the poolish overnight (was more than 16 hours), took it out later in the afternoon and made the final dough. I left the yeast out of the final dough too and just let it rise for a longer time.

            Using Caputo Tipo 00 (red packet) the dough turned out just great, but did highlight that my oven is not hot enough 🙁

            Thanks,
            Leigh

  32. When i need fresh yeast i go to a Turkish supermarket here in Vlaardingen. You should look for one in your neighbourhood.
    Good luck,

    Monique

    • Hi Monique,
      Thank you for the great tip! We looked at your blog and you have baked a lot of inspirational loafs and buns in your little kitchen!

      Happy baking and lots of loaf,

      Marieke

  33. Cool, thanks. And thank you for a very nice site.

    I live in Denmark and here fresh yeast is a lot more common than dry yeast.

    • How interesting! I would not have thought Denmarkt to be so different from Holland in this respect. Over here you have to know exactly where to look to find fresh yeast. It is not available in supermarkets for example and most ‘bakeries’ aren’t actually baking on site anymore but get their bread delivered from a larger bread ‘factory’ . The ones that still bake on site probably will sell you some fresh yeast when asked, but it is not readily available. I have only seen it in some organic stores.

      • That’s quite strange! I wondered why you always use instant yeast but that explains it. I guess fresh yeast has just become a tradition here. We have only one company that produces yeast but you can buy it at every supermarket for about €0,13 for 50g – and it’s always available. So if you visit sometime you’ll not have to look very far.

  34. This looks great. I’ve tried the basic dough several times, so I think I’m ready for this 🙂

    Just one question. Why not use fresh yeast? That way (if I’m right) the poolish should have a little more than 1g of yeast which should be about the size of a pea. And for the dough itself – about 20 g.

    • Hi Christian,

      Yes, by all means do. This is of course a great idea. In the area where we live it got harder and harder to get fresh yeast, so, getting good results with the dried stuff, we decided to use it as a rule. In this case, if people have fresh yeast, it makes it a bit easier with the measuring /weighing.

      Thanks and happy baking!

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