First bake not going so well! Yeast issue?
After weeks of reading and getting everything I needed I finally tackled my first bake yesterday and it's not going so well.
Following this recipe: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/rusticbread [1]
I woke up to a pre-ferment that had not risen AT ALL. I used a brand new bag of SAF red instant yeast to make the pre-ferment.
Seeing as how nothing seemed to be active, this morning I decided to test the yeast in a bit of warm water (125F-ish), a bit of sugar and waited a 5 minutes.
The SAF yeast did nothing at all.
The Fleischmann's bread machine yeast (which was brand new) produced the best foam and most activity
The Bob's Red Mill active dry yeast I got two weeks ago and always kept in the fridge produced some activity but not as much.
Our city water smells of chlorine so I decided to get some spring water and opened bag 2 of 3 of SAF instant red I got from the same retailer, and even then, nothing happens.
Since I'm a noob I assumed I might have done a mistake. Am I suppose to wake up the SAF yeast somehow? How can two bags out of three produce no results, even in spring water?
My ambient temperature is 72F.