0 a thick mixture of flour, yeast (= a type of fungus that makes bread swell and become light), and water that is allowed to ferment (= go through a chemical change that causes it to produce bubbles) and then added to dough (= mixture) for making bread, especially Italian bread:
The biga requires at least 12 hours to rise, and the bread dough must rise twice.
Let the biga rise overnight at room temperature and then use it.
Most yeasted pre-ferments fall into one of three categories: "poolish" or "pouliche", a loose-textured mixture composed of roughly equal amounts of flour and water; "biga", a stiff mixture with a higher proportion of flour; and "pâte fermentée", which is simply a portion of dough reserved from a previous batch.
After mixing the ciabatta ingredients into the risen biga, the dough will be much stickier and more moist than other bread doughs.
Where one baker uses a poolish starter, another uses a biga pre-ferment, and yet another uses neither.
I am a decent bread baker and am accustomed to using starters such as bigas and poolishes which develop a wonderful tasting product.
