Substituting instant for active dry in a panettone recipe
Hi, I am new to this site - I come here often to look up previously given advice, and now I have a question for you all I finally decided to register and log in. So... anyway - my recipe calls for active dry yeast; but I use instant. I couldn't recall the ratios for substitution so I came here and found a thread that suggested using 20% less instant than the ADY called for in the recipe. I did that. This recipe involves a starter, then making a first dough, letting it rise and double, and making a second dough, letting it rise and double, then forming the loaf and letting it rise. It gives approximate rise times of .5-1 hr for the starter and 3-5 hrs for the next two rises and 2-4 hrs for the final rise - I am finding that the stuff is rising (doubling) MUCH faster than that - like in a quarter of the time. Do I need to be concerned about flavor etc.? Should I refrigerate the dough to slow it down, or just be pleased that my panettone will be made in a fraction of the time? Thanks in advance!
This came from our head of program at baking school. He suggested as a rough guide that the substitution, for all practical purposes, can be treated as a 1, 2, 3 relationship. That is, if a recipe calls for 3 oz. of fresh yeast, you can substitute 2 oz. of active dry or 1 oz. of instant. So whichever direction you want to go in the substitution process, you take that relationship into account.
If I understand correctly, you want to use instant in a recipe that calls for ADY. So I would take the recipe's amount for ADY and use half in the instant form or 50% less rather than 20% less. If going that low makes you nervous, try 33% less.
Notice I called this a rough guide. The more scientific answer is that you use 40% less going from fresh to active dry and 33% less going from fresh to instant. My sources (other than my baking instructor) don't give advice re: going from active dry to instant. Unfortunate since that's what we need to know most of the time.
Your question about flavour: too much commercial yeast in baked goods can give people indigestion but the amount of yeast has to be seriously out of whack to make the end result unpalatable. Flavour is such a personal thing.
Enjoy your panettone! And welcome aboard as a newly registered member of the site.
We could be of more help if we see what it is you are working with.
Josh
though there are times, such as maybe pizza dough, that you might prefer active dry yeast.
I'm not one of this site's more active posters, and I've never made panettone but I've worked with yeast as well as sourdough a bit. With baker's yeast there are several things you can do to slow down yeast growth. One is to reduce the inoculation. In general, and assuming the same yeast type, if you halve the inoculation, you'll double the time, approximately. This inoculation reduction also works when the only source of yeast is a sponge, you can decrease the percentage amount of sponge versus new dough. Another slowing technique is to reduce the environment's temperature a few degrees. Instead of 80°F, you can try 75°F. You can even go down to as low as 68°F; and anyone who has refrigerated dough, they realize that fermentation still occurs, but even slower. Another slowing technique is to add more salt, but with sweets, when you add salt, it tends to alter some of the flavors, and I'd be hesitant to try this with panettone. Salt is roughly 4 times more powerful than sugar in regards to slowing fermentation, the technical term I believe is osmotic pressure, so you could also add more sugar.