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Instant/rapid rise YEAST

yjbus's picture
yjbus

Instant/rapid rise YEAST

i understand that instant yeast can be mixed in with dry ingredients without needing to be proofed, but it can't be good that im seeing the granuals of yeast in the dough as im rolling it out.

i am making croissant dough and i always give the dough a thorough beating as well as some kneading by hand.  i have made many many batches, and i came to a method where i add the yeast to a small bowl, pour the milk on top of the yeast (as it seemed to be more effective than pouring the yeast on top of the milk), then pour that into the other dry ingredients.

i also can never seem to get a full batch of croissant dough as good as a half batch.

so, i am in the process of making a full batch today, and i finish the dough, let it rest 30 minutes, and then start rolling it out for lamination.  but then i look down very closely and i see hundreds of little specks of the yeast inside the dough.

so here is what i believe. 

one: the reason i even came to that technique of pouring the milk on top of the instant yeast was because that was the most effective in terms of dissolving it and therefore i got my best results from it.

two: the reason i could never get a full batch of dough (3 cups of flour) to turn out as well as a half batch (1 1/2 cups of flour) was because the increase in mass and amount of material exponentially increased the inability of the dough to absorb and disolve the yeast.

with both fresh yeast and active dry which i have both used, the yeast disolves into a gooey brownish paste.


instant yeast does not disolve in liquid unless you physically stir and smear it in the liquid until it disolves.

i am going to test this on my next batch of croissants but i just wanted to know what you guys know about this.

 

 

 

thomaschacon's picture
thomaschacon (not verified)

They're too active and, by the time you finish laminating, resting, and shaping the croissant, they will have "run out of steam" and you won't get them to rise very much, if at all. (It's also quite annoying to have dough puff up so much when you're trying to layer it: you open the fridge and your dough is already rising!)

I'm rather surprised your recipe hasn't warned you off using instant yeast.

yjbus's picture
yjbus

thats not really a problem for me.  croissants can fail due to so many different reasons.  they are insanely sensitive.

i have made amazing croissants using instant yeast and i have made door stops using instant yeast.

i dont believe instant yeast is the problem.  but i believe what is happening to it along the way is a problem.

 

 

 

yy's picture
yy

Hi yjbus

I think instant yeast is fine for croissants. I use ciril Hitz's recipe, which calls for multiple refrigeration steps, so the yeast don't become too active until the final proofing. It's always worked for me. I've found that instant yeast doesn't really "dissolve" in pure liquid without an insane amount of agitation. What helps is making a paste by adding part of your flour in first and stirring it around with a whisk. This paste should be the consistency of a thick pancake batter. I think the friction from the flour particles helps disperse the granules much better than if you had liquid alone. 

If you do this paste step, you should be able to make a batch of any size without having to deal with those pesky granules. Try it and let us know if it works for you. good luck!

yjbus's picture
yjbus

thanks for the advice. what annoys me is that instant yeast is supposed to not need dissolving. that's one of its unique and convenient characteristics over the other two types of yeast.

Im not making a unique dough. I feel instant yeast should work comfortably in this case but now isee that its not even close to fully absorbing into the dough.

anyways I'll try the new technique thursday and tell u how it goes.

yy's picture
yy

Well technically all yeast is in need of "dissolving," (meaning dispersed evenly throughout your dough such that the individual organisms are in contact with their nutritional medium, not dissolving in the chemical sense) so I don't think "not needing dissolving" is a characteristic of instant yeast. It's just that instant yeast, unlike active dry, is not encased in a thick layer of dead yeast that you have to work to shed before getting to the dormant, live stuff. Thus, gram for gram, you're getting much more yeast activity. The granules are also much smaller, so for doughs with intermediate hydration and above, you don't need to do an extra step. 

What hydration does your croissant formula call for? I've run into the same problem with instant yeast a couple times before. Now when I encounter a formula under 60% hydration, I do the "pancake batter" step just to be safe. 

yjbus's picture
yjbus

I am under 50%.

I guess I just assumed instant yeast never needed to be dissolved before hand.

I guess it varies and depends on like you said the hydration level.

I'll be dissolving it one way or another from now on.

yjbus's picture
yjbus

good news, the yeast wasn't the reason for my failed batches of croissants as i dissolved it and saw little to no flecks of yeast in the dough.

bad news, i have no idea why a full batch of croissants never turns out well...