March 24, 2015 - 1:53pm
Any reason to give up commercial yeast? Oh yes
In case anyone is searching the freshloaf forum or hanging out, but too scared to try to begin a starter, or too disillusioned after a brief try, here's my intimate look about why to give up commercial yeast. Health, yes, but other reasons as well. Confidence is a big one.
Next up will be breads #72 and #73. #72 is a whole wheat no-knead bread, baked this morning. #73 will be another beer bread, though it is rising slowly and I'm at the point of wondering if this will happen. My mantra is "be patient." Planning after Passover to get back to whole grains more, after trying homemade injera and matzoh.
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I use commercial yeast for some recipes as well as my sourdough starters. Some just need it, especially sweet/enriched doughs - yes, I've seen sourdough hot cross bun, croissant, and even brioche made with sourdoughs, but they're just not the same IMO.
However.. And I appreciate that this may not concern some folks, one thing I've found is that with ONE exception (that I've found so-far), no commercial yeast is organic. Worse still, for every tonne of yeast produced, 3/4 a tonne of industrial effluent is also produced - the by-products of fermentation, additives like sodium hydroxide, sulphuric acid, etc. and all that doesn't give me a happy feeling in my (mostly) organic bakery.
So any organic bread you buy, unless its sourdough, has non-organic yeast in it - unless they use the one source of organic yeast that I've been able to buy - Bioreal yeast made in Germany.
Have a look at their site: http://www.bioreal.de/en/home/bioreal/production.html and make your own mind up.
I do think there's a difference between a typical 3-hour standard yeast process vs. a 45 minute industrial (Chorleywood bread-making process) though. Huge difference. Every now and then I do eat some supermarket bread though, just to remind myself how bad it is...
Cheers,
-Gordon