The name Biga had been with me since an unrealized restaurant concept years earlier, but when I started making bread again, it came back for a very practical reason.

I was maintaining my sourdough culture very stiff (at a low hydration). As I kneaded it into a ball, it reminded me of a firm pasta dough—or, more accurately, a traditional biga.

That was enough to bring the name back.

What Is a Biga?

A biga is an Italian preferment. Traditionally, a portion of the flour and water is mixed ahead of the final dough with a small amount of baker’s yeast and allowed to ferment slowly. There is no salt, and the classic form is quite stiff, usually around 50 to 60 percent hydration.¹

Biga emerged as commercial baker’s yeast began changing European breadmaking in the nineteenth century. Faster, more predictable fermentation brought obvious advantages, but it also shortened a process that had traditionally developed flavor over time. Italian bakers used biga as a practical middle ground—retaining the reliability of baker’s yeast while restoring some of the aroma, complexity, and dough strength of a longer fermentation.¹

Time Matters

My starter is naturally leavened rather than built with baker’s yeast, but its stiffness is what first brought biga back to mind. There’s nothing wrong with a little baker’s yeast, either—the point isn’t purity. In the end, what matters most is giving fermentation the time it needs.

That respect for time is the real connection for me. Both biga and sourdough begin fermentation before the final dough is mixed, allowing part of the transformation to happen slowly rather than asking everything to happen at once.

Given enough time, the yeasts, bacteria, enzymes, and acids in sourdough begin changing the grain before the loaf ever reaches the oven.

Whole grains naturally contain phytate, a compound the seed uses to store phosphorus. Phytate can also bind minerals like iron and zinc, making some of them harder for us to absorb. As sourdough becomes more acidic, enzymes called phytases get to work breaking some of that phytate down. How much depends on the grain, extraction rate, acidity, temperature, and fermentation time—but the effect of sourdough fermentation on phytate is well documented.³

Fermentation is changing the carbohydrates, too. Wheat and other grains contain fructans, part of a family of fermentable carbohydrates known as FODMAPs. For some people, these can contribute to bloating and other digestive discomfort. During fermentation, the microorganisms in the dough metabolize a portion of these compounds before we ever eat the bread.⁴

In fact, for some people who believe gluten is the problem—particularly those with IBS—the trigger may instead be fructans. In a double-blind crossover study of people with self-reported non-celiac gluten sensitivity, fructans produced greater gastrointestinal symptoms than gluten.⁴⁵

That’s where it became especially interesting to me. Long fermentation wasn’t simply producing a more flavorful loaf; it was changing the flour along the way. Learning more about those changes became part of a broader effort to pay attention to my own gut health and to how the bread I was making made me feel. After all, this was initially just for my family and me.

Fermentation does considerably more than make dough rise.

A Living Technique

In the baking world, biga continues to evolve. Piergiorgio Giorilli, one of the bakers most closely associated with the modern method, adapted biga to contemporary flours and bakery conditions and helped carry techniques from traditional breadmaking into modern pizza.²

That evolution is part of what keeps bread interesting to me. These methods have history, but they aren’t static. Bakers inherit them, learn from them, adapt them to the grain and conditions in front of them, and then carry them forward.

I still find it fascinating that ingredients as simple as flour, water, and salt can create nearly endless possibilities. Even flour isn’t really one ingredient. I think about grains much the same way I would vegetables: a carrot isn’t a cucumber, and Red Fife isn’t einkorn. Each brings its own flavor, structure, strengths, and quirks.

Then start changing the extraction rate—how much of the grain remains in the flour. Mill it fresh or let the flour age. Change the season, the field, the harvest, the hydration, the temperature, or the fermentation, and those few simple ingredients suddenly become a nearly limitless number of possibilities.

Maybe that’s why the honest answer to so many questions in bread is simply:

It depends.