Preferment, noun: A combination of flour, water, and sometimes yeast that is prepared in advance (as in pre-fermentation) and then mixed into the main body of the dough as an additional ingredient.
When we first started baking, this was a new technique and a new vocab word all in one. Wrapping your head around the idea of a preferment can be a little tricky at first, but well worth it for the boost in flavor and structure one provides!
Making bread with a preferment gives everything a head start. They work as an extension of the fermentation and proofing times, giving the enzymes in the flour longer to break down starch molecules. The end result is a bread with superior structure and a complex flavor.
The term "preferment" is actually an umbrella term for preferments in general. The most common types that you'll come across are poolish, biga, pate fermentee, sponge, starter, and levain.
These preferments are all a combination of flour and water, but they differ in the proportion of one to the other. Some, like poolish and sponges, have a higher ratio of water and are very loose and batter-like. Others, like biga and pate fermentee, have more flour and end up looking like a mini ball of dough.
Mix a preferment anywhere from a few hours to three days ahead of when you're planning on baking bread. We like to mix the preferment before we go to bed and then bake in the morning.
Even stiff preferments will rise and collapse a few times, so use a good sized container. Leave the lid cracked open a bit to allow gases to escape.
Have any of you worked with preferments before?
Related: Basic Sourdough Starter
(Image Credit: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)
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I read this as prefer-ment instead of pre-ferment as in I like something better than something else (yes its not really a word), then I read the description, yeast, flour, water and thought who would prefer-ment that?
view sally599's profile
I find that bread made with patee fermente has a longer shelf life than one made without any preferment. The taste is slightly nuttier too.
view bubble's profile
*pate fermentee, that is
view bubble's profile
I feel like this description/definition is incomplete. Why does one use preferment? If you're willing to get started a few hours/days ahead of the actual baking by making the preferment, why not make the actual dough that far in advance and let the whole thing develop flavor/structure/whatever, a la no-knead bread? And how does one add it as an ingredient? I can only imagine that a small ball of dough, like the pate fermentee described above, would be really hard to incorporate into a larger batch of dough thoroughly, with only some parts of the dough getting the preferment.
Anyone?
view mh330's profile
Oh yes, I've been experimenting with the sourdough starter...for the last loaf I took some out of the big batch, added some yeast and honey to it, then let it sit around for an hour or two before incorporating it into my no knead bread loaf. I'm curious about the other types of preferment and how you'd use them as well.
view aleec's profile
mh330, as far as I know, using preferment gives the bread a deeper, rounder flavor and also cuts final rising time. When using preferment, you end up using less yeast, instead giving the yeast more time to grow. If you just ferment the entire batch of dough longer, there is a risk that you'll overferment and the dough will collapse when baking. That said, retarding fermentation significantly improves structure and flavor even without preferment. And the preferment is generally wet enough that it is easy to incorporate into the dough. Hope this helps.
view bubble's profile