The bread bible points out instant yeast as having a greater concentration of live yeast than the active. Other than that is there any reason to use one as opposed to the other?
In my opinion, the yeast industry in North America is shooting itself in the foot by having too many types of yeast and by different manufacturers not using the same names (or using the same names for different things).
In the brand I buy there is:
Cake (moist) - the traditional live yeast; needs to be dissolved in water
Active dry - the traditional dry yeast; needs to be dissolved usually with a bit of sugar
Instant - contains a bit of yeast enhancer (citric acid, maybe some other stuff?) and is possibly more concentrated than active dry; does not need to be dissolved
Bread Machine - exactly the same as instant in a different package
Rapid Rise - larger amount of yeast enhancers and other packaging changes to the granules. Does not have to be dissolved. Works very fast and is intended for straight doughs that you want to complete within an hour or so. Generally not used by artisan bakers who seek slower, not faster, rise.
The confusing part is that some manufacturers reverse the meaning of "instant" and "rapid rise", and vary on which they call "bread machine". Thus hurting the entire industry IMHO.
I agree!! Labeling is confusing..I have a jar..label says "Bread Machine Yeast also ideal for all Rapid Rise recipes". A newbie baker sees the label and according to your definitions might think Bread Machine = Instant (in a different package) = Rapid Rise. I'm feeling safe with SAF and sourdough!
as a retired pro baker the only type of yeast we used is cake. in bread doughs it DOES NOT neet to be disolved we just crumbled it into the floue which is what i still do in my home today.
even in sweet bun dough we crumbled it into the flour. the only time we put it into the water was for danish and other very soft doughs
Don't stress about yeast types; they all pretty much work for home baking. Just avoid the "rapid rise"; otherwise use whatever looks good. I use Fleishman's Bread Machine myself.
Ditto not to worry, CountryBoy. It's good to know the technicalities but, I've been using active dry yeast purchased bulk from the co-op for years, and rising is generally the least of my concerns- it all works, instant and active dry are the easiest to store and use, and the discernible differences to me as a home baker are non-existent.
thanks for the clarification. I think I found the phrasing too sublime also. However, it might possibly be incorrect as well. After all, if there is greater potency with the Instant Yeast then it is necessary to measure less of it than with the Active Yeast. After all, one does not want to put more than the required amount of yeast into a recipe. Yes?
If you're converting from active dry to instant, you'll want to use about 75-80% of the yeast called for in the recipe. But I don't often bother, myself. The bread rises a bit faster than the recipe calls for, sometimes, but not much.
men...! ;-} --What I mean is, and I do not stand behind the science, lads, is that if you want a baby, you're in the process of making a baby, what difference does it make if there were 10,000 little buggers or 100,000, because you will have the desired result in the end, n'est pas? (Pardon my French...) Essentially yes SDG, one does not need more than enough. Gold star for you.:-) So. If your bread is rising...and you like how it bakes up...does it matter if on some uber-microscopic scale one type of yeast gives you more, er, sperm, than another? I don't believe that the standard yeasts available will give you too much, as such, by virtue of type alone. I can't believe this. You guys. But I did LOVE the part about sublime.
Or, if you have 10,000 little buggers, wait a while and you'll have 100,000. The bread will still rise by double with only a little more patience and all will be well in the end. You'll have buns in the oven as long as some buggers make it into the dough. Something like that...
One advantage to my low protein flour is that I don't have to knead as long as y'all do! Yesterday, after mixing my dough with both kinds of yeasties, I fell asleep and took a long extended nap. Upon awakening, discovered my long overproofed sticky liquidy dough waiting to be kneaded. Bubbly Goo. I sprinkled it with lots of flour and proceeded to remove my spoon and plop eveything onto the counter top. Had to use my bench scraper to knead in the beginning and eventually got enough flour into it. When I thought I was finished kneading, I rolled it into "teflon" flour and put it into my warm glass casserole and let it proof. Since I had left it 8 hours, liquid, I decided to skip the bulk rise (though I had added a lot of flour) and hoped for a good second rise. Low and behold the little buggers were still working (they must have partied when I worked in more flour) and lifted my dough and I came out with a nice loaf. I could almost hear them cheering when I came back to the kitchen to check on 'em before baking. :)Mini Oven
Very interesting topic and questions I've asked myself often. Now, how 'bout this?
This week I picked up a few things for the kitchen and thought it would be handy to have another set of stainless measuring spoons. When I compared the new to the old I saw that these can't possibly be the same measure!
Weight vs Measure
Sure enough, tested using sugar and the digital scale, the new 1/4 tsp holds 1 gram; the old weighs 3 grams! That means that we are all over the board if we are trusting volume measurements rather than weights. That would affect the action of your yeast a lot more than the small percentage of difference between types of yeast.
So that's why I could taste the baking powder in those dumplings!
I checked my measuring spoons, too. Sure enough, the one that looks smaller holds much less. The interesting thing about the smaller set is the quantities that are stamped in the handles. The smallest says 1 ml., 1/4 tsp. According to the conversion table I checked, that's not right for teaspoon (metric), teaspoon (UK) or teaspoon (US). If anyone's curious, the teaspoons rank in size from metric, the smallest, to US, to UK, the largest.
I have always used fresh yeast (for about 25 years) for all my baking and it always works well. I dissolve it it a little water then add it to the flour. I was interested to read in this thread that you can crumble into the flour without dissolving it. I'll try that next bake. I have even used fresh yeast from frozen. Once it has dissolved in warm water, it can be used as if it were fresh.
I have a good local source of fresh yeast, but as I live in Australia, it won't be of use to most of you.
I bought some cake yeast for the first time just before Thanksgiving. I finally found it at our Whole Foods store and was anxious to test it. I really loved using it and, wow, did it do a great job of raising dough. All I did was crumble it into the flour and mix away as normal. It worked great and was just fun to experiment with. If you have ever watched Danielle Forestier's video on making French bread at Julia Child's site you will see she also just crumbled the yeast and kneaded it into her dough.
Many commercial bakers who bake bread will supply yeast by the pound. I buy mine from a local source one pound at a time for $1.75 which is a lot cheaper than supermarkets sell it. break-maker.net provides a table of the equivalents of active dry yeast to compressed yeast in ounces. An excellent scale for baking up to about seven pounds by very small increments (1/8 ounce) is the Salton scale. What is most frustrating in the recipes is the lack of qualification of the type of yeast used, whether it is compressed/dissolving or active dry, there is a major difference in the result.
Does anyone have any experience with saving of unused portions of Fleischmans Yeast packets in the frig? Since I don't use all the packet at one time I am wondering if anyone has any experience with saving of the unused portions in the frig? My guess is that once I open the packet the rest of it will not be that useful for the next week's baking. Also do you ever buy Fleischman yeast in bulk from KA? Thank you.
I have bought a bag of SAF Instant from KA, and I put it in a canister they also sell there. I keep it in the refrigerator. It seems to work fine for very long periods of time, like a year or more. I believe you can freeze it, as well, although I have not tried that.
I have also used part of a Fleishman's packet, tightly rolled up the packet, and stored it in the refrigerator for weeks without any trouble, as MiniOven says.
Just to add a little to the ideas mentioned above, I don't know what the disadvantages of Rapid Rise would be in terms of any enhancers and such, but I have used it interchangeably with instant yeast or active yeast without much noticeable difference in practice. I agree that you shouldn't stress about yeast. If you put in too much, it may rise more quickly than you intended. If you use too little, it might take a few hours longer to get the rise you want. However, once you use the same kind of yeast repeatedly, you'll zero in on how much is needed for the rise you want.
I've read that the packaging and enhancers may change how quickly yeast will wake up, which can result in some differences in the bread making routine. However, you could easily account for that difference too, by just introducing the yeast earlier or later to the dough or proofing it first. In other words, if one yeast takes 1/2 hour to wake up and another wakes up the minute it hits the dough, you could substitute one for the other by mixing the yeast with the dough immediately for the first and doing a 1/2 hour autolyse with the second. Or, you could proof the yeast in warm water and flour for the first, then introduce it to the dough, so that it's all ready to go when it goes in the flour.
All of that is just a long way of saying that it's the same organism in all of them, so you should be able to get the same results by adjusting the amount used and by adjusting whether you do a proof or maybe an autolyse to adjust for how fast they become active. And, you can vary the recipe rise times if the amounts you used aren't comparable, which might change the bread flavor or texture somewhat but would result in similar bread, as long as the effective amount of organisms is not different by a big factor like 10 or more.
Many recipe books give estimates of the weight ratio to substitute between the various types of yeast. From what I can gather, 18 grams of fresh yeast = 7-10 grams of active dry yeast = about 4-6 grams of instant yeast. However, I've seen variations in the recommended substitution ratios from one book to another.
The only time I ever had an open package of yeast not work was when it got above 38°c or got wet. I crimp the tops and put a mini clothes pin on them and mine stand in the cupboard. You can stand them in the fridge as well. They seem to keep forever.
I give them the sniff test too just to make sure, they should smell nutty and fresh yeasty, If a package smells like ammonia or you can't stand the smell, dump it. Same goes for cake yeast. (Cake yeast when old starts to run out of the package.) Mini Oven
I use Fleischmans Instant yeast in 1lb. bulk bags. Once I'm done baking I just fold the top over and place a "Chip Clip" on the seam to seal. Then I toss in the fridge in back on the top shelf.
" ...I just fold the top over and place a "Chip Clip" on the seam to seal. Then I toss in the fridge.. "
tattoedtonka, I did a search on seam, looking for help with my dough seams. The above portion of your statement came up on the search page. I had to read about the person who sealed their dough with a chip clip!
I did find other posts that helped me, but yours really brought a smile to my face.
I use Active Dry yeast. I'm under the impression that Instant is now preferred, but I bought in bulk and still have lots left. I keep it in the freezer, not trusting the cupboard or the fridge, and it's lasting for years.
Also, I don't always dissolve the yeast ahead of time. Sometimes I just throw it in the dry ingredients, like instant. It hasn't caused me any problems.
And, since I like long ferments, I usually use less yeast than the recipe calls for (unless the recipe is already for long fermentation). So imprecise measuring spoons don't matter too much to me as far as yeast goes.
But I've often looked at the spoons that also have ml markings and wondered about the "coincidence" that that spoon size should be exactly so many ml, and not a fraction thereof.
to water and ml is volume (as opposed to mg, weight) If you start getting into drops, you will drive yourself nuts so using a teaspoon which is a rounded off measurement is just a practical way to rapidly measure small units of volume. If you want to be precise, use a scale. Hope that helps you out. -- Mini Oven
Interesting topic, here...I have been pondering the same things lately. Mainly because there is so much misinformation out there. I recently took a few books out from the library. Amy's Bread says that instant yeast has to be "activated" by warm water, which we know isn't true (pain a l'ancienne, anyone?). And then another book I checked out (I think Ultimate Bread?) said that instant yeast is the same as rapid rise. However, I know from practice that this, too, is wrong. Rapid rise yeast raises a straight dough in about half the time of active dry or instant yeast. Conversely, my own experience has been that instant yeast and active dry act the same in dough, when you're looking at rise times and whatnot. I do, however, believe that it takes less instant yeast than active dry to raise dough, all other variables being equal. Of course, I read that in a book (probably BBA), and obviously we can't take the books as gospel, but I just remember to consider the source.
It's annoying that there are so many differing "facts" about yeast, isn't it?
Another angle... does anyone have experience with making sourdough starter with active dry vs. rapid yeast? I just mixed up my first batch ever (yeah!), and after mixing it up, I realized that the recipe called for rapid rise yeast instead of the active dry yeast I used. My guess is that it won't matter since I won't be using it right away. Thoughts?
Some people have suggested that Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast may be kept in the fridge for a whole long time.
My suggestion is that people would be wise to Check carefully on the back for the very fine print that suggests an EXP date. I used one just now with an EXP date of Nov 24 and it was very active. Whereas the one I had in the fridge was a month over the EXP date and v e r y s l o w to go off.
Active Dry Yeast does not require sugar to be activated
I use Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast and have done for many years. I always activate it in water (baby bottle temperature) but don't usually wait til it starts bubbling to check to make sure it's viable. I add a little sugar only if the bread recipe calls for sugar. I would only check for viability if the jar was near the end and the date was close to expiry. Once the jar is opened, I keep the yeast in the fridge.
Generally, I activate the yeast in a small bowl with quarter cup of the babybottle temperature water. I then mix all the other ingredients together in the big mixing bowl and finally add the yeasted water at the end. (Sometimes I withhold the salt until kneading time....)
I have read (but of course, one can't believe everything one reads) that instant yeast is not so good for long slow cool rises - which is what I favour for all our bread.
Thank you all for the valuable information. I am under the impression that most of you do not care whether they use Active or Instant. I am new to baking and have been using Fleischmann's Bread Machine Yeast (also for Rapid Rise recepies) from Albertson's. I got used to it and was having very good results, when I decided to buy a 1lb. pack of Red Star Active Dry from Costco. Since I started using the active dry my bread has not risen enough even once. With the Fleischmann my bread is ready to bake after about 75min of rising. With the active dry I wait more than 2 hours and still the bread is too dense. How long should I wait with active dry yeast? More then 2 and 1/2 hours? Please share your experience. I also use about 30-50% more of the active dry compared to rapid rise, and initially proof it in warm water for 10 minutes. It seems the yeast takes long to kick in, as the first 15 minutes after the kneading it almost does not rise at all. Then around after 2 hours it stops rising and that's it. I am almost 100% of the time baking pure whole wheat and adding glutten to bond with the yeast. BUt the dry yeast is killing me. Please help. Otherwise I have to discard a pound of active dry yeast. Thanks
If you are using the same recipes that you were using with your instant yeast, you may have better luck if you use more active dry than instant called for in your recipe.
Susan (Wild Yeast) recently posted a yeast conversion chart:
Also, are you certain that your active dry yeast is viable? Does it start to bubble a little before you add it to the rest of the ingredients? If you are adding any sugar or honey to your bread, try adding a little of that to the warm water when you rehydrate the yeast. (Check the temperature of the water by doing the baby bottle test on the inside of your wrist)
Elizabeth, CB, thank you for the quick reply. I activate the ADY in warm water, but not sure how warm exactly. Have not measured it. BUT the yeast starts bubbling before I add it to the rest of the ingredients. I never add it before it starts bubbling. I also add the salt a little later in the kneading process as somewhere I read that salt slows down the activation process. Following the same procedure I have been making very good loafs with Instant, but with ADY my loafs just do not expand enough, air bubbles just do not form.
Could it be that I have a problem with the flour? At the same time I switched yeast I opened a pack of Hungarian Stoneground Wholewheat. I have not used it before. I wonder why I made two changes simultaneously. It's scientifically illogical to do it.
It is possible that the different flour is to blame, Nick. Does it have a lower protein content than the flour you used before? (And I suppose the age of the flour might also have some effect.)
I was having a devil of a time with flattish and sluggish wholewheat bread when I was using wholewheat with only about 11% protein. Switching to 13-14% made a huge difference and the bread started rising properly.
I know about the wholewheat lack of gluten problem, so I add 1 & 1/2 tbsp of gluten to each cup of flower.
before I used the following ratios
3cups wholewheat
1&1/2-2 tsp Instant
4&1/2 tbsp gluten
Now I tried with active dry using more and more yeast. Last time I used 4&1/2 tsp. Crazy..., but no improvement.
As I am typing though I am making bread with Instant with the old technology, and the bread seems to not be rising even with the Instant. At least not like before. Already 75min rising and I do not like how it looks.
This current flour is 4/30g protein. This is less than 8%. Is it too bad? Plus I bought the flour on sale for $1 per 5lbs. I wonder what that means...
well I never thought making bread would be easy, and I am fine with the thought that I need time to get it all right and consistent.
BTW, baking the bread through a BREADMACHINE cycle seems to be fine. Bread rises and so, but taste is not like baking on the stone...
8% protein seems very low. That's roughly the protein percentage for cake flour, isn't it?
Have you tried using the original amount of active dry with some of your previous brand of flour? It's sounding more and more as if it is the "new" sale priced flour that is the problem. (Any idea how old the flour is? If it came in a bag, there may be a bar code number. The first number on the bar code is apparently the year - "7" indicates "2007" - and the next three numbers are the day of the year "032" day 32 of the year: February 1.)
4&1/2 tsp of yeast for 3 cups of flour does seem excessive. I use 2 tsp active dry for 6 cups allpurpose flour and 3 cups wholewheat flour....
Have you read Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book - A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking? It has some great tips on how to work with whole wheat. The basic loaf recipe is also very good. Here is my take on her <a href="http://etherwork.net/recipes/wholewheat.html#wholewheat">100% whole wheat bread recipe</a>.
I am almost certain now it is the flour. In the afternoon I used instant yeast and waited for 4 hours to rise. This loaf came fine, but still not as bubbly and expanded as it should be...after 4h rising. With the flour I have been using before (now I do not remember which one it was) in hour and a half my bread was already overproof and could not support itself in the oven.
ok, I'll get some other flour and see how it behaves.
Laurel's recipe looks good, but I will probably not try it now. I am very busy for now and try to figure out a faster proc4edure that will give me consistent and delicious results. Plus me and my wife eat about 1 loaf (3c flour) per weak, so it does not make sense for now to use the long procedure.
I mostly use Fleischmann's Bread Machine yeast. Since I started buying it in large quantities I do notice that every once in a while I get a bottle that seems less active than usual, and I either have to use a little more or allow a longer primary fermentation. One bottle I finally dumped in the garden but that was unusual. So there may be some manufacturing batch variance.
In general I have been using less and less yeast over the last year; I am now at the point of using 3/4 tsp in most recipes calling for 2 tsp. Primary fermentation is a little longer (but I often retard anyway) but the law of exponential growth takes over at a certain point and the rise completes no matter how much yeast you added to start.
We are only two as well. I generally make two or three loaves at a time and freeze (double bag) the extra loaves until we need them. This too saves time. I know it might seem like the 100% whole wheat bread recipe based on Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book basic recipe will take longer, it doesn't really. And because of using a starter dough, it helps to keep the bread longer.
Don't forget that bread dough can be left to rise on its own so adding that extra second step doesn't really add that much more of your valuable time to the procedure. As the inimitable Julia Child said about bread dough,
Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time. No.
(excerpt from the section on French Bread in "From Julia Child's Kitchen" publisher: Alfred A Knopf 1979)
You can use the starter method with any bread recipe. Just mix half of the yeast, most of the water and about half the flour. You don't have to knead it. Let that rise overnight. Then mix the rest of the ingredients the next morning (remember to add the starter!) and proceed as usual. I hope that makes sense!
yes, this makes sense. I can freeze it. I will try to do it this way. I also want to try a similar method with sourdough. I saw a nice movie on youtube
"http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=l-KRstswHl0"
I will also start using less yeast. See how it goes. Need to do lots of experimenting.
cake yeast is the best to use for the following reasions]
1-most breads need to come out of the mixer between 75 and 80 degrees F
a colder ferment will uesult in the best flavor as a hoter ferment will cause the yeast to ferment faster and leave behind more ETOH resulting in a sour old tastiog bread or even a runned dough
when making danish or other sweet products the dough must not ferment on the bench while the fat is being folded in to the dough also it allows for long frezer life
i made about 4 pounds of danish let the dough set in the frdge ofer night then made the dough up into cheese and other types of indvidual pieces and put them in to the frezzer UNBAKED
THEY WILL LIVE ABOUT TWO MONTHS IN THE FREZZER
you can take out as much as you want and leave them out at a hot room temp about 80 degress for between 2 and 3 hours then bake them and they will be as good as the day them were made
dry yeast does not hold up as well in the frezzer and since it needs hot water to get started your dough comes out of the mixer to hot
also remember that you need 2 times the amount of cake yeast then powderd 1 ounce of dry means 2 ounces of cake
lastly cake yeast is the cheapest thing around. forget about buying it a the suppermarket. find a bakery supplyer and most will sell you one block which is 2 pounds of fresh cake yeast for about 2 dollers and if will live in your fridge for about 2 months or so just don't freez it
Active dry yeast does not require hot (or even warm) water to get started. It just needs to be rehydrated.
Not everyone uses an electric mixer to make bread dough.
Having said that, when I can get it (it's difficult to find and MORE expensive to buy in my neighbourhood) it is nice to use cake yeast for sweet rolls.
I'm sorry if this is redundant... I'm new to baking-bread-from-scratch but trying to learn...
I just moved to a rural area in China where they don't sell bread. My husband misses it a lot, so I'm trying to learn to make it. However, what I'm reading on here sounds a bit intimidating. I've baked yeast breads in the states, but I had any ingredient I could want and just did step by step recipe instructions, without trouble. Here, I just have the basics.
I'm posting some questions in other, more relevant forums, but mine for here is: when I buy yeast here, it comes in a small packet. What kind of yeast is that? And if it's one particular kind (active dry yeast, perhaps?) then do I need to do something special if a recipe calls for a different kind of yeast? I'm pretty sure this is all they sell here - it's meant for steamed buns, "bao zi".
If the yeast is like little granules, it's either active dry or instant.
Instant yeast can be added directly to a recipe but active dry has to be rehydrated. Just to be sure, all you have to do is stir the yeast into a bit of water (not hotter than "baby bottle" temperature) to rehydrate it. Stir it until it looks like cream and the yeast has dissolved. Then add the yeasted water to whatever recipe you are using. This way, if it's active dry, it will work and if it's instant, it will work just as well.
Some people say to use a little less instant yeast than active dry but you can exchange them in recipes measure for measure.
Thank you - this does help - I did what you said (in the process of my first real loaf of bread) and it reacted just the way you described, looking like cream and dissolving.
I guess I didn't realize that active dry yeast was always supposed to be hydrated, until reading it hear. I have never used instant yeast until a month ago. I have been baking bread since I was a teenager.
If a recipe calls for hydrating, and I mix by hand, I do. If I am mixing bread in a machine, I just dump my active dry yeast on top of the flour. During the past month I have used instant the same way and I have noticed absolutely NO difference in the breads, whether I hydrate first or not, whether I use instant or active or not.
I really think bread dough is USUALLY more forgiving than we give it credit for being.
I gather that active dry yeast will work if it hasn't been rehydrated before being added to the bread dough. But it's such a short step that isn't that difficult to do.
I really think bread dough is USUALLY more forgiving than we give it credit for being.
Absolutely! I'm learning this over and over as I flagrantly measure by volume rather than weight (via expensive digital scale), add more or less yeast to a recipe, add more or less or different kinds of flour. Sometimes I think that bread WANTS to be bread.
(Having said that, I have had my major failures with home captured yeast. I'm just about to go an make focaccia dough with it. Wish me luck....)
Re: Active Yeast vs. Instant Yeast
My favourite soapbox topic!
In my opinion, the yeast industry in North America is shooting itself in the foot by having too many types of yeast and by different manufacturers not using the same names (or using the same names for different things).
In the brand I buy there is:
Cake (moist) - the traditional live yeast; needs to be dissolved in water
Active dry - the traditional dry yeast; needs to be dissolved usually with a bit of sugar
Instant - contains a bit of yeast enhancer (citric acid, maybe some other stuff?) and is possibly more concentrated than active dry; does not need to be dissolved
Bread Machine - exactly the same as instant in a different package
Rapid Rise - larger amount of yeast enhancers and other packaging changes to the granules. Does not have to be dissolved. Works very fast and is intended for straight doughs that you want to complete within an hour or so. Generally not used by artisan bakers who seek slower, not faster, rise.
The confusing part is that some manufacturers reverse the meaning of "instant" and "rapid rise", and vary on which they call "bread machine". Thus hurting the entire industry IMHO.
sPh
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Too many names..
I agree!! Labeling is confusing..I have a jar..label says "Bread Machine Yeast also ideal for all Rapid Rise recipes". A newbie baker sees the label and according to your definitions might think Bread Machine = Instant (in a different package) = Rapid Rise. I'm feeling safe with SAF and sourdough!
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cake yeast
as a retired pro baker the only type of yeast we used is cake. in bread doughs it DOES NOT neet to be disolved we just crumbled it into the floue which is what i still do in my home today.
even in sweet bun dough we crumbled it into the flour. the only time we put it into the water was for danish and other very soft doughs
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Thanks sPh
It looks more complicated than I thought. Thanks.
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Don't worry about yeast
Don't stress about yeast types; they all pretty much work for home baking. Just avoid the "rapid rise"; otherwise use whatever looks good. I use Fleishman's Bread Machine myself.
sPh
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Looks are deceiving
Ditto not to worry, CountryBoy. It's good to know the technicalities but, I've been using active dry yeast purchased bulk from the co-op for years, and rising is generally the least of my concerns- it all works, instant and active dry are the easiest to store and use, and the discernible differences to me as a home baker are non-existent.
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For the record
it might be interesting to note that Hamelman in his Bread book mentions that he uses Instant yeast almost exclusively due to its dependability.
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let's put it another way
if you're pregnant, you really don't need to worry about sperm count.
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I was a bit slow there but I
I was a bit slow there but I think I get your gist now. You mean you don't need more than is enough to do the job?
Sourdough-guy
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I agree Sourdough-guy and thanks....
thanks for the clarification. I think I found the phrasing too sublime also. However, it might possibly be incorrect as well. After all, if there is greater potency with the Instant Yeast then it is necessary to measure less of it than with the Active Yeast. After all, one does not want to put more than the required amount of yeast into a recipe. Yes?
countryboy
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Active / Instant conversion
If you're converting from active dry to instant, you'll want to use about 75-80% of the yeast called for in the recipe. But I don't often bother, myself. The bread rises a bit faster than the recipe calls for, sometimes, but not much.
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*sigh*
men...! ;-} --What I mean is, and I do not stand behind the science, lads, is that if you want a baby, you're in the process of making a baby, what difference does it make if there were 10,000 little buggers or 100,000, because you will have the desired result in the end, n'est pas? (Pardon my French...) Essentially yes SDG, one does not need more than enough. Gold star for you.:-) So. If your bread is rising...and you like how it bakes up...does it matter if on some uber-microscopic scale one type of yeast gives you more, er, sperm, than another? I don't believe that the standard yeasts available will give you too much, as such, by virtue of type alone. I can't believe this. You guys. But I did LOVE the part about sublime.
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wait for the babies...
Or, if you have 10,000 little buggers, wait a while and you'll have 100,000. The bread will still rise by double with only a little more patience and all will be well in the end. You'll have buns in the oven as long as some buggers make it into the dough. Something like that...
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One advantage to my low
One advantage to my low protein flour is that I don't have to knead as long as y'all do! Yesterday, after mixing my dough with both kinds of yeasties, I fell asleep and took a long extended nap. Upon awakening, discovered my long overproofed sticky liquidy dough waiting to be kneaded. Bubbly Goo. I sprinkled it with lots of flour and proceeded to remove my spoon and plop eveything onto the counter top. Had to use my bench scraper to knead in the beginning and eventually got enough flour into it. When I thought I was finished kneading, I rolled it into "teflon" flour and put it into my warm glass casserole and let it proof. Since I had left it 8 hours, liquid, I decided to skip the bulk rise (though I had added a lot of flour) and hoped for a good second rise.
Low and behold the little buggers were still working (they must have partied when I worked in more flour) and lifted my dough and I came out with a nice loaf. I could almost hear them cheering when I came back to the kitchen to check on 'em before baking. :)Mini Oven
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Not to worry..
I sighed about the same time ;-) I totally understood what you were saying!
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Yeah that cheered me up.
Yeah that cheered me up. Been a long time since I got a gold star. lol.
Sourdough-guy
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Yeast X 3!
Very interesting topic and questions I've asked myself often. Now, how 'bout this?
This week I picked up a few things for the kitchen and thought it would be handy to have another set of stainless measuring spoons. When I compared the new to the old I saw that these can't possibly be the same measure!
Weight vs Measure
Sure enough, tested using sugar and the digital scale, the new 1/4 tsp holds 1 gram; the old weighs 3 grams! That means that we are all over the board if we are trusting volume measurements rather than weights. That would affect the action of your yeast a lot more than the small percentage of difference between types of yeast.
So that's why I could taste the baking powder in those dumplings!
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I checked my measuring
I checked my measuring spoons, too. Sure enough, the one that looks smaller holds much less. The interesting thing about the smaller set is the quantities that are stamped in the handles. The smallest says 1 ml., 1/4 tsp. According to the conversion table I checked, that's not right for teaspoon (metric), teaspoon (UK) or teaspoon (US). If anyone's curious, the teaspoons rank in size from metric, the smallest, to US, to UK, the largest.
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fresh yeast...
I've been wanting to try fresh or 'cake' yeast - but it seems to be obsolete for home bakers. Does anyone know a source?
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Whole Foods?
I think I've seen it at our Whole Foods Market here in Omaha. You might also be able to find it in health food stores?
Happy week-end all - bet there's some baking going on today!!
Trish
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Cake yeast, fresh yeast, compressed yeast etc
I have always used fresh yeast (for about 25 years) for all my baking and it always works well. I dissolve it it a little water then add it to the flour. I was interested to read in this thread that you can crumble into the flour without dissolving it. I'll try that next bake. I have even used fresh yeast from frozen. Once it has dissolved in warm water, it can be used as if it were fresh.
I have a good local source of fresh yeast, but as I live in Australia, it won't be of use to most of you.
Heather
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Cake yeast - no need to dissolve
I bought some cake yeast for the first time just before Thanksgiving. I finally found it at our Whole Foods store and was anxious to test it. I really loved using it and, wow, did it do a great job of raising dough. All I did was crumble it into the flour and mix away as normal. It worked great and was just fun to experiment with. If you have ever watched Danielle Forestier's video on making French bread at Julia Child's site you will see she also just crumbled the yeast and kneaded it into her dough.
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Source of cake yeast
Many commercial bakers who bake bread will supply yeast by the pound. I buy mine from a local source one pound at a time for $1.75 which is a lot cheaper than supermarkets sell it. break-maker.net provides a table of the equivalents of active dry yeast to compressed yeast in ounces. An excellent scale for baking up to about seven pounds by very small increments (1/8 ounce) is the Salton scale. What is most frustrating in the recipes is the lack of qualification of the type of yeast used, whether it is compressed/dissolving or active dry, there is a major difference in the result.
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cake yeast
I normally find it wrapped in foil, 1 1/2" cubes between the eggs and the milk. Mini Oven
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Shelf Life of Yeast
Does anyone have any experience with saving of unused portions of Fleischmans Yeast packets in the frig? Since I don't use all the packet at one time I am wondering if anyone has any experience with saving of the unused portions in the frig? My guess is that once I open the packet the rest of it will not be that useful for the next week's baking. Also do you ever buy Fleischman yeast in bulk from KA? Thank you.
countryboy
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SAF red instant yeast from KA
CountryBoy,
I have bought a bag of SAF Instant from KA, and I put it in a canister they also sell there. I keep it in the refrigerator. It seems to work fine for very long periods of time, like a year or more. I believe you can freeze it, as well, although I have not tried that.
I have also used part of a Fleishman's packet, tightly rolled up the packet, and stored it in the refrigerator for weeks without any trouble, as MiniOven says.
Just to add a little to the ideas mentioned above, I don't know what the disadvantages of Rapid Rise would be in terms of any enhancers and such, but I have used it interchangeably with instant yeast or active yeast without much noticeable difference in practice. I agree that you shouldn't stress about yeast. If you put in too much, it may rise more quickly than you intended. If you use too little, it might take a few hours longer to get the rise you want. However, once you use the same kind of yeast repeatedly, you'll zero in on how much is needed for the rise you want.
I've read that the packaging and enhancers may change how quickly yeast will wake up, which can result in some differences in the bread making routine. However, you could easily account for that difference too, by just introducing the yeast earlier or later to the dough or proofing it first. In other words, if one yeast takes 1/2 hour to wake up and another wakes up the minute it hits the dough, you could substitute one for the other by mixing the yeast with the dough immediately for the first and doing a 1/2 hour autolyse with the second. Or, you could proof the yeast in warm water and flour for the first, then introduce it to the dough, so that it's all ready to go when it goes in the flour.
All of that is just a long way of saying that it's the same organism in all of them, so you should be able to get the same results by adjusting the amount used and by adjusting whether you do a proof or maybe an autolyse to adjust for how fast they become active. And, you can vary the recipe rise times if the amounts you used aren't comparable, which might change the bread flavor or texture somewhat but would result in similar bread, as long as the effective amount of organisms is not different by a big factor like 10 or more.
Many recipe books give estimates of the weight ratio to substitute between the various types of yeast. From what I can gather, 18 grams of fresh yeast = 7-10 grams of active dry yeast = about 4-6 grams of instant yeast. However, I've seen variations in the recommended substitution ratios from one book to another.
Bill
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Shelf life of yeast
The only time I ever had an open package of yeast not work was when it got above 38°c or got wet. I crimp the tops and put a mini clothes pin on them and mine stand in the cupboard. You can stand them in the fridge as well. They seem to keep forever.
I give them the sniff test too just to make sure, they should smell nutty and fresh yeasty, If a package smells like ammonia or you can't stand the smell, dump it. Same goes for cake yeast. (Cake yeast when old starts to run out of the package.) Mini Oven
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Many thanks Mini Oven
Appreciate the quick and thorough answer on the question.
countryboy
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Fleischmans
I use Fleischmans Instant yeast in 1lb. bulk bags. Once I'm done baking I just fold the top over and place a "Chip Clip" on the seam to seal. Then I toss in the fridge in back on the top shelf.
TT
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LOL!
" ...I just fold the top over and place a "Chip Clip" on the seam to seal. Then I toss in the fridge.. "
tattoedtonka, I did a search on seam, looking for help with my dough seams. The above portion of your statement came up on the search page. I had to read about the person who sealed their dough with a chip clip!
I did find other posts that helped me, but yours really brought a smile to my face.
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Many thanks.......
To everyone for their time, patience, and comprehensive answers. Very much appreciated.
countryboy
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My yeast habits - they work just fine - and measuring spoons
I use Active Dry yeast. I'm under the impression that Instant is now preferred, but I bought in bulk and still have lots left. I keep it in the freezer, not trusting the cupboard or the fridge, and it's lasting for years.
Also, I don't always dissolve the yeast ahead of time. Sometimes I just throw it in the dry ingredients, like instant. It hasn't caused me any problems.
And, since I like long ferments, I usually use less yeast than the recipe calls for (unless the recipe is already for long fermentation). So imprecise measuring spoons don't matter too much to me as far as yeast goes.
But I've often looked at the spoons that also have ml markings and wondered about the "coincidence" that that spoon size should be exactly so many ml, and not a fraction thereof.
Rosalie
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Well, I think they were calibrated
to water and ml is volume (as opposed to mg, weight) If you start getting into drops, you will drive yourself nuts so using a teaspoon which is a rounded off measurement is just a practical way to rapidly measure small units of volume. If you want to be precise, use a scale. Hope that helps you out. -- Mini Oven
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Interesting topic, here...I
Interesting topic, here...I have been pondering the same things lately. Mainly because there is so much misinformation out there. I recently took a few books out from the library. Amy's Bread says that instant yeast has to be "activated" by warm water, which we know isn't true (pain a l'ancienne, anyone?). And then another book I checked out (I think Ultimate Bread?) said that instant yeast is the same as rapid rise. However, I know from practice that this, too, is wrong. Rapid rise yeast raises a straight dough in about half the time of active dry or instant yeast. Conversely, my own experience has been that instant yeast and active dry act the same in dough, when you're looking at rise times and whatnot. I do, however, believe that it takes less instant yeast than active dry to raise dough, all other variables being equal. Of course, I read that in a book (probably BBA), and obviously we can't take the books as gospel, but I just remember to consider the source.
It's annoying that there are so many differing "facts" about yeast, isn't it?
Katie in SC
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starter
Another angle... does anyone have experience with making sourdough starter with active dry vs. rapid yeast? I just mixed up my first batch ever (yeah!), and after mixing it up, I realized that the recipe called for rapid rise yeast instead of the active dry yeast I used. My guess is that it won't matter since I won't be using it right away. Thoughts?
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Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast
Some people have suggested that Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast may be kept in the fridge for a whole long time.
My suggestion is that people would be wise to Check carefully on the back for the very fine print that suggests an EXP date. I used one just now with an EXP date of Nov 24 and it was very active. Whereas the one I had in the fridge was a month over the EXP date and v e r y s l o w to go off.
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Active Dry Yeast does not require sugar to be activated
Active Dry Yeast does not require sugar to be activated
I use Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast and have done for many years. I always activate it in water (baby bottle temperature) but don't usually wait til it starts bubbling to check to make sure it's viable. I add a little sugar only if the bread recipe calls for sugar. I would only check for viability if the jar was near the end and the date was close to expiry. Once the jar is opened, I keep the yeast in the fridge.
Generally, I activate the yeast in a small bowl with quarter cup of the babybottle temperature water. I then mix all the other ingredients together in the big mixing bowl and finally add the yeasted water at the end. (Sometimes I withhold the salt until kneading time....)
I have read (but of course, one can't believe everything one reads) that instant yeast is not so good for long slow cool rises - which is what I favour for all our bread.
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recent TLF thread on identical topic
This thread, Yeast: Dry vs Rapid Rise, begun Nov 4, 2007 and having many replies, covers many of the same points. Check it out.
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still having problems with ACTIVE
Thank you all for the valuable information. I am under the impression that most of you do not care whether they use Active or Instant. I am new to baking and have been using Fleischmann's Bread Machine Yeast (also for Rapid Rise recepies) from Albertson's. I got used to it and was having very good results, when I decided to buy a 1lb. pack of Red Star Active Dry from Costco. Since I started using the active dry my bread has not risen enough even once. With the Fleischmann my bread is ready to bake after about 75min of rising. With the active dry I wait more than 2 hours and still the bread is too dense. How long should I wait with active dry yeast? More then 2 and 1/2 hours? Please share your experience. I also use about 30-50% more of the active dry compared to rapid rise, and initially proof it in warm water for 10 minutes. It seems the yeast takes long to kick in, as the first 15 minutes after the kneading it almost does not rise at all. Then around after 2 hours it stops rising and that's it. I am almost 100% of the time baking pure whole wheat and adding glutten to bond with the yeast. BUt the dry yeast is killing me. Please help. Otherwise I have to discard a pound of active dry yeast. Thanks
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If you are using the same
If you are using the same recipes that you were using with your instant yeast, you may have better luck if you use more active dry than instant called for in your recipe.
Susan (Wild Yeast) recently posted a yeast conversion chart:
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/01/12/instant-yeast/#yeast-conversions
Also, are you certain that your active dry yeast is viable? Does it start to bubble a little before you add it to the rest of the ingredients? If you are adding any sugar or honey to your bread, try adding a little of that to the warm water when you rehydrate the yeast. (Check the temperature of the water by doing the baby bottle test on the inside of your wrist)
Hope that helps!
Elizabeth
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Re: activating ADY
dobrinov,
ADY is best activated in water at 105-110°F. Are you using an instant-read thermometer?
cb
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Elizabeth, CB, thank you for
Elizabeth, CB, thank you for the quick reply. I activate the ADY in warm water, but not sure how warm exactly. Have not measured it. BUT the yeast starts bubbling before I add it to the rest of the ingredients. I never add it before it starts bubbling. I also add the salt a little later in the kneading process as somewhere I read that salt slows down the activation process. Following the same procedure I have been making very good loafs with Instant, but with ADY my loafs just do not expand enough, air bubbles just do not form.
Could it be that I have a problem with the flour? At the same time I switched yeast I opened a pack of Hungarian Stoneground Wholewheat. I have not used it before. I wonder why I made two changes simultaneously. It's scientifically illogical to do it.
Thanks again
nick
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what is protein content of the new flour?
It is possible that the different flour is to blame, Nick. Does it have a lower protein content than the flour you used before? (And I suppose the age of the flour might also have some effect.)
I was having a devil of a time with flattish and sluggish wholewheat bread when I was using wholewheat with only about 11% protein. Switching to 13-14% made a huge difference and the bread started rising properly.
-Elizabeth
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Thank You Elizabeth I know
Thank You Elizabeth
I know about the wholewheat lack of gluten problem, so I add 1 & 1/2 tbsp of gluten to each cup of flower.
before I used the following ratios
3cups wholewheat
1&1/2-2 tsp Instant
4&1/2 tbsp gluten
Now I tried with active dry using more and more yeast. Last time I used 4&1/2 tsp. Crazy..., but no improvement.
As I am typing though I am making bread with Instant with the old technology, and the bread seems to not be rising even with the Instant. At least not like before. Already 75min rising and I do not like how it looks.
This current flour is 4/30g protein. This is less than 8%. Is it too bad? Plus I bought the flour on sale for $1 per 5lbs. I wonder what that means...
well I never thought making bread would be easy, and I am fine with the thought that I need time to get it all right and consistent.
BTW, baking the bread through a BREADMACHINE cycle seems to be fine. Bread rises and so, but taste is not like baking on the stone...
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8% protein seems very low.
8% protein seems very low. That's roughly the protein percentage for cake flour, isn't it?
Have you tried using the original amount of active dry with some of your previous brand of flour? It's sounding more and more as if it is the "new" sale priced flour that is the problem. (Any idea how old the flour is? If it came in a bag, there may be a bar code number. The first number on the bar code is apparently the year - "7" indicates "2007" - and the next three numbers are the day of the year "032" day 32 of the year: February 1.)
4&1/2 tsp of yeast for 3 cups of flour does seem excessive. I use 2 tsp active dry for 6 cups allpurpose flour and 3 cups wholewheat flour....
Have you read Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book - A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking? It has some great tips on how to work with whole wheat. The basic loaf recipe is also very good. Here is my take on her <a href="http://etherwork.net/recipes/wholewheat.html#wholewheat">100% whole wheat bread recipe</a>.
-Elizabeth
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I am almost certain now it
I am almost certain now it is the flour. In the afternoon I used instant yeast and waited for 4 hours to rise. This loaf came fine, but still not as bubbly and expanded as it should be...after 4h rising. With the flour I have been using before (now I do not remember which one it was) in hour and a half my bread was already overproof and could not support itself in the oven.
ok, I'll get some other flour and see how it behaves.
Laurel's recipe looks good, but I will probably not try it now. I am very busy for now and try to figure out a faster proc4edure that will give me consistent and delicious results. Plus me and my wife eat about 1 loaf (3c flour) per weak, so it does not make sense for now to use the long procedure.
Thanks again, you help me learn
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Less active yeast
I mostly use Fleischmann's Bread Machine yeast. Since I started buying it in large quantities I do notice that every once in a while I get a bottle that seems less active than usual, and I either have to use a little more or allow a longer primary fermentation. One bottle I finally dumped in the garden but that was unusual. So there may be some manufacturing batch variance.
In general I have been using less and less yeast over the last year; I am now at the point of using 3/4 tsp in most recipes calling for 2 tsp. Primary fermentation is a little longer (but I often retard anyway) but the law of exponential growth takes over at a certain point and the rise completes no matter how much yeast you added to start.
sPh
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We are only two as well. I
We are only two as well. I generally make two or three loaves at a time and freeze (double bag) the extra loaves until we need them. This too saves time. I know it might seem like the 100% whole wheat bread recipe based on Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book basic recipe will take longer, it doesn't really. And because of using a starter dough, it helps to keep the bread longer.
Don't forget that bread dough can be left to rise on its own so adding that extra second step doesn't really add that much more of your valuable time to the procedure. As the inimitable Julia Child said about bread dough,
(excerpt from the section on French Bread in "From Julia Child's Kitchen" publisher: Alfred A Knopf 1979)
You can use the starter method with any bread recipe. Just mix half of the yeast, most of the water and about half the flour. You don't have to knead it. Let that rise overnight. Then mix the rest of the ingredients the next morning (remember to add the starter!) and proceed as usual. I hope that makes sense!
-Elizabeth
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yes, this makes sense. I can
yes, this makes sense. I can freeze it. I will try to do it this way. I also want to try a similar method with sourdough. I saw a nice movie on youtube
"http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=l-KRstswHl0"
I will also start using less yeast. See how it goes. Need to do lots of experimenting.
thanks
nick
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cake yeast
cake yeast is the best to use for the following reasions]
1-most breads need to come out of the mixer between 75 and 80 degrees F
a colder ferment will uesult in the best flavor as a hoter ferment will cause the yeast to ferment faster and leave behind more ETOH resulting in a sour old tastiog bread or even a runned dough
when making danish or other sweet products the dough must not ferment on the bench while the fat is being folded in to the dough also it allows for long frezer life
i made about 4 pounds of danish let the dough set in the frdge ofer night then made the dough up into cheese and other types of indvidual pieces and put them in to the frezzer UNBAKED
THEY WILL LIVE ABOUT TWO MONTHS IN THE FREZZER
you can take out as much as you want and leave them out at a hot room temp about 80 degress for between 2 and 3 hours then bake them and they will be as good as the day them were made
dry yeast does not hold up as well in the frezzer and since it needs hot water to get started your dough comes out of the mixer to hot
also remember that you need 2 times the amount of cake yeast then powderd 1 ounce of dry means 2 ounces of cake
lastly cake yeast is the cheapest thing around. forget about buying it a the suppermarket. find a bakery supplyer and most will sell you one block which is 2 pounds of fresh cake yeast for about 2 dollers and if will live in your fridge for about 2 months or so just don't freez it
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re: cake yeast vs. active dry
Chacun à son goût...
Just two comments:
Having said that, when I can get it (it's difficult to find and MORE expensive to buy in my neighbourhood) it is nice to use cake yeast for sweet rolls.
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where are you
i am sure i could give you an address of a bakerie supply house where you could get a block of cake yeast cheap
here in new york i can get it for about 1.25 per pound
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yeast type?
I'm sorry if this is redundant... I'm new to baking-bread-from-scratch but trying to learn...
I just moved to a rural area in China where they don't sell bread. My husband misses it a lot, so I'm trying to learn to make it. However, what I'm reading on here sounds a bit intimidating. I've baked yeast breads in the states, but I had any ingredient I could want and just did step by step recipe instructions, without trouble. Here, I just have the basics.
I'm posting some questions in other, more relevant forums, but mine for here is: when I buy yeast here, it comes in a small packet. What kind of yeast is that? And if it's one particular kind (active dry yeast, perhaps?) then do I need to do something special if a recipe calls for a different kind of yeast? I'm pretty sure this is all they sell here - it's meant for steamed buns, "bao zi".
Thanks!
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If it is little granules, it's either active dry or instant
If the yeast is like little granules, it's either active dry or instant.
Instant yeast can be added directly to a recipe but active dry has to be rehydrated. Just to be sure, all you have to do is stir the yeast into a bit of water (not hotter than "baby bottle" temperature) to rehydrate it. Stir it until it looks like cream and the yeast has dissolved. Then add the yeasted water to whatever recipe you are using. This way, if it's active dry, it will work and if it's instant, it will work just as well.
Some people say to use a little less instant yeast than active dry but you can exchange them in recipes measure for measure.
Hope that helps!
-Elizabeth
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perfect advice
Thank you - this does help - I did what you said (in the process of my first real loaf of bread) and it reacted just the way you described, looking like cream and dissolving.
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Glad to be of service.
Glad to be of service. I do hope your bread turns out the way you want it to!
-Elizabeth
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I guess I didn't realize
I guess I didn't realize that active dry yeast was always supposed to be hydrated, until reading it hear. I have never used instant yeast until a month ago. I have been baking bread since I was a teenager.
If a recipe calls for hydrating, and I mix by hand, I do. If I am mixing bread in a machine, I just dump my active dry yeast on top of the flour. During the past month I have used instant the same way and I have noticed absolutely NO difference in the breads, whether I hydrate first or not, whether I use instant or active or not.
I really think bread dough is USUALLY more forgiving than we give it credit for being.
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I gather that active dry
I gather that active dry yeast will work if it hasn't been rehydrated before being added to the bread dough. But it's such a short step that isn't that difficult to do.
Absolutely! I'm learning this over and over as I flagrantly measure by volume rather than weight (via expensive digital scale), add more or less yeast to a recipe, add more or less or different kinds of flour. Sometimes I think that bread WANTS to be bread.
(Having said that, I have had my major failures with home captured yeast. I'm just about to go an make focaccia dough with it. Wish me luck....)
-Elizabeth
P.S. I have zero experience with bread machines.
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