Can I rescue a bread preferment with unmixed flour lumps?
I started a plain 65% flour+water+poolish, mixed it up and left it to sit for a few hours before kneading. When I came back, I discovered I hadn't stirred all the way to the bottom of the bowl. Stirring it in after the fact, I now have horrible lurking lumps of flour that hardened into damp cement. They flatten and stretch when I squeeze them, but still don't incorporate evenly.
Is there a way to force them to incorporate, or do I chuck this 1kg of flour and start over?
Details:
- 400g 50/50 bread flour poolish from my ongoing starter
- 800g bread flour
- 450g water
Best Answer
It's not a big deal, you can use it. Just add all the water for the next step of the process when you're ready and mix it up really well, getting the lumps out, then add the rest of the flour and other ingredients.
Pictures about "Can I rescue a bread preferment with unmixed flour lumps?"
Can Overkneaded dough be saved?
If you believe that your dough is slightly over-kneaded, try allowing it to rise a little longer before shaping it into a loaf. While you can't fully undo the damage of over-kneaded dough, letting the dough rise for longer can help relax the gluten in the dough a bit.Can you Overrise dough?
Can dough sit too long? If dough is left to rise for too long it will cause issues with the taste and appearance of the bread. Excess fermentation occurring in either the first or second rise can lead to a sour, unpleasant taste if the dough gets left for a long time. Over-proofed loaves have a gummy or dense texture.How do you rescue Overkneaded dough?
If you think you've over-kneaded the dough, try letting it rise a little longer before shaping it. You can't really undo the damage of over-worked gluten, but the longer rise can get the dough to relax a little. Loaves made with over-kneaded dough often end up with a rock-hard crust and a dense, dry interior.Why does my bread dough have lumps?
This looks like an excessive amount of flour worked into the dough when shaping - the spots do absorb humidity from the surrounding dough, but remain dense and hard. To prevent this, be mindful of how much flour you add to your bench and how you shape your loaf.How to Convert Any Bread Recipe to Preferment | Principles of Baking
More answers regarding can I rescue a bread preferment with unmixed flour lumps?
Answer 2
What I did that fixed it: I added another 130g of water that night, along with the salt, and kneaded it into an even soup, massaging the flour lumps as often as I found them, then left it overnight to soak in the fridge. In the morning, the lumps were still there (I could not get them out), but I squeezed as many of them flat as I could. Then I added the corresponding 200g flour and kneaded much more aggressively than usual.
The result when I baked in the evening turned out ciabatta instead of French loaf (possibly gluten problems from weird time at high hydration), but the flour lumps were indeed gone.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Mariana Kurnyk, Daria Shevtsova, Klaus Nielsen, Vaibhav Jadhav