January 6, 2017 - 9:52am
Starter adj based on recipe Active Yeast requirement
Hello,
I'm just getting into bread making so very new. I have a few recipes i would like to try but they call for
10ml active yeast
350ml water
250ml starter
700g flour
Trying to apply a few diff methods like the 1-2-3 1 part starter, 2x for water, 3x for flour. But then there is the active yeast which is apparently 1 cup starter equivelant to ~7grams active yeast?
This then does not end up being 1-2-3
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You are correct; that is not a 1-2-3 recipe. It's called a hybrid, where you use both starter (with wild yeast) and some active dry yeast. Where did you get this recipe? Two teaspoons (10 ml) of yeast is an awful lot to use with 250 ml (1 cup) of starter, unless the starter is completely inactive and is used just for flavouring.
I'm finding it a bit confusing to figure out the percentages when some of the ingredients are in weight and some in volume. A 1-2-3 recipe uses 100 grams (not ml) of active starter, 200 grams of water (same as 200 ml) and 300 grams of flour, with 6 grams of salt. Some people will add about 1/8 tsp of active dry yeast to give the dough a boost and allow it to ferment and proof more quickly, but that speed will sacrifice a bit of the flavour you get from a longer, cooler bulk ferment.
Does that help? I'm not sure where you are at in your knowledge and understanding of bread baking, so do let us know if there are more questions. We all have lots of questions, no matter where we are at in the process!
I got the recipe from some baking book left on a desk at work. Picture looked good :)
The recipe calls for 700g of flour, so is 250ml and 2tsp active yeast still a lot? I'm trying to get rid of any of the active yeast and only use Starter. So that is why i thought you would add ~230g of starter for total of 480g? That does seem a lot which is why the methods for 1-2-3 or conversion of active yeast to starter don't make sense. Or this recipe does not make sense?
1 part starter
2 parts water
3 parts flour
All by weight!
Eg.
150g starter (100% hydration)
300g water
450g flour
+ 9g salt (2% of flour)
Your original recipe wasn't 123. One can produce a perfect loaf without the addition of that extra yeast. In many hybrids, if not all, I find the little bit of extra yeast redundant.
is to begin with a beginner-level recipe. The one I pretty much always suggest is Lahey's basic all-white yeasted no-knead loaf adjusted as necessary; e.g. if the person doesn't have a dutch oven.
I don't suggest starting with sourdough because it doing so introduces an additional source of complexity (and thus of potential questions and/or problems) compared to commercial yeast. With the latter, we don't have to concern ourselves with how active it is, when to feed it so it will be highly active some time later when we use it, etc.