DoughPlanBiga vs Poolish for Pizza: What Is the Difference?
By Josep Mampel Marques, updated
Poolish and biga are both preferments: part of the flour, water and a little yeast mixed hours before the main dough. The main difference is water. A poolish is made with equal weights of flour and water (100% hydration) and is batter-like. A biga is usually stiff, often described at 45% to 55% hydration, although some bakers make it looser. The DoughPlan planner does not calculate preferments yet; this guide explains what the published sources say so you can plan one by hand.
Side by side
| Poolish | Biga | |
|---|---|---|
| Hydration | 100%: "equal weights of flour and water" (King Arthur) | Often 45% to 55% (a definition posted on The Fresh Loaf); King Arthur notes it can be stiff or loose, up to 100% |
| Texture | Wet, like a thick batter | Dry and shaggy when stiff |
| Yeast | Small and variable: less for a longer or warmer ferment | As little as 0.1% of the biga flour (King Arthur); "always 1% yeast (fresh)" in one baker's reply on The Fresh Loaf |
| Ferment time | About 8 to 16 hours in the examples below | "At least several hours, and for as much as 12 to 16 hours" (King Arthur) |
The biga row shows the problem with this topic: sources disagree. King Arthur's professional reference describes biga as a broad Italian term for a preferment, while many pizza recipes treat it as a specific stiff mix. We have not found a primary source for the widely repeated Italian biga formula, which is one reason the planner does not offer biga yet.
Poolish: yeast by time
A thread on The Fresh Loaf collects two poolish tables, given as yeast percentage of the poolish flour:
| Poolish time | Dry yeast (first table) | Fresh yeast (Italian table) |
|---|---|---|
| 4 to 5 hours | 1.5% | |
| 6 to 7 hours | 1% | |
| 8 hours | 0.23% to 0.33% | 0.5% (8 to 9 hours) |
| 12 hours | 0.1% to 0.2% | 0.3% (10 to 12 hours) |
| 16 hours | 0.03% to 0.08% | 0.1% (15 to 16 hours) |
The first table comes with the advice "less yeast on warm days, more yeast on cool days". The poster does not name the original sources, beyond "an Italian web site" for the second table, so treat both as community rules of thumb. King Arthur's reference makes the same point about temperature: a preferment ripening in a 65 °F room needs more yeast than one in a 75 °F room.
Why bakers use a preferment at all
King Arthur lists flavor and keeping quality: breads made with preferments "often possess a subtle wheaty aroma, delicate flavor", and the acidity a preferment adds strengthens the dough structure and helps the bread keep. For pizza, the appeal is the same: more fermentation flavor from part of the flour, without leaving the whole dough out for a day.
A cold ferment is the other way to get there. The Fresh Loaf thread these tables come from is titled "preferment vs cold fermentation: experiment by Adam Ragusea", and its members compare the two approaches. If you want a long fermentation today, a cold ferment is the method the planner supports.
Biga or poolish: which should you choose?
- Choose poolish if you want the simpler option. Being batter-like, it mixes with a spoon, and the published yeast tables above give you a starting point.
- Choose biga if you are following a specific recipe that calls for it. Because definitions vary so much, follow that recipe's hydration and yeast rather than mixing advice from different sources.
- Choose neither if you just want good flavor with the least planning. A 1 to 3 day cold ferment is a straight dough with no extra stage.
How to fit a preferment into your recipe
The arithmetic is the same for both: the preferment's flour and water are part of the recipe, not extra.
- Decide the total flour and hydration for your pizzas. The planner gives these for any number of balls.
- Choose how much of the flour goes into the preferment. Write it as a share of the total flour.
- Preferment water = preferment flour × preferment hydration (100% for a poolish).
- Final dough: the remaining flour, the remaining water (total water minus the preferment water), all the salt, and any extra yeast.
- Check the preferment does not hold more water than the whole recipe. A large poolish in a low hydration dough can.
Example: 600 g of flour at 63% hydration is 378 g of water. A poolish with 200 g of that flour takes 200 g of water. The final dough gets the other 400 g of flour and 178 g of water.
What we cannot give you yet is the yeast for the final dough after a preferment. That depends on how far the preferment has fermented, and the planner's model does not cover it. Follow the recipe you are using for that step.
When will DoughPlan support preferments?
We would like to add poolish and biga, but only once we can back the numbers with sources, and there is no date for it yet. If we do, the method page will explain how they are calculated. Until then, the planner handles straight doughs: how much yeast for pizza dough covers those in detail.
Sources
- King Arthur Baking, Preferment (professional reference): https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/pro/reference/preferment
- The Fresh Loaf, "Functional effect of biga vs poolish" (biga and poolish definitions, 2018): https://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/396996
- The Fresh Loaf, "preferment vs cold fermentation: experiment by Adam Ragusea" (poolish yeast tables, 2023): https://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/520287