Ciabatta Bread with Natural Yeast

As promised... we tried this recipe yesterday and totally fell in love with it! I would advice to half the doses the first time as this dough is very hydrated and a bit more challenging that the normal bread recipe. It might take a bit of practice!


Ingredients for the polish:

250g strong flour
250g water
65g refreshed Natural Yeast

Ingredients for the dough:

poolish +
750g strong white flour
475 g water ( 380+95)
5 gr malt
18 g salt

10 am: Refresh your Natural Yeast

22 pm: In a glass or plastic bowl dissolve 65g of refreshed Natural yeast in 250g of water, then add 250 of strong white flour (we used Waitrose very strong Canadian white flour) and mix with a fork. You will get a very wet dough. Cover your bowl with cling film and let it rest for 10- 12 hours.

10am: In the bowl of your planetary mixer ( we use a kenwood major) place the polish, 380g of water and malt. Dissolve the polish into the water with the K beater. Add the flour and beat again until you have the dough. Then dissolve the salt in the remaining water and add it slowly while working the dough with the k beater. This is a very hydrated dough so we stopped the planetary mixer for 20 minutes so that the
gluten hydrolysis  can start. After 20 minutes we substituted the k beater with the dough hook and worked the dough for about 10 minutes until it was smooth and elastic.
Remove the dough from the mixer and let it rest covered for one hour. This dough is very soft so we used a big plastic container from Ikea, which seals the moisture inside so there is no need to cover the dough with cling film.

After one hour fold the dough . repeat 2 times, once ever hour ( 3 times in total).

Let it rest for another hour. Spread some olive oil on your counter and remove the dough from the plastic container.  Cut in two portions ad then simply pull it to form a long ciabatta shape. Put it on a baking tray lined with baking paper. You might nee to use a dough scraper to move the dough as it is very soft. Sprinkle both ciabattas with flour, cover with cling film and let them proof for about 1 to 2 hours. Bake in a preheated oven at 240 C for 10 minutes and then at 200 for 30 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.