April 11, 2020 - 9:19am
New to yeast water. Need some advice
Hi everyone. I am another victim of the no yeast in stores problem and a friend tuned me in to capturing wild yeast. Everything I read though focuses on sourdough. I see things here and there alluding to yeast waters being used to make non sourdough goods, but I can't find anything I understand to explain how to do that. I know I am probably in a minority here, but I am not a fan of sourdough and really want to avoid it.
I made my yeast water using dates and it seems to be going well. It doesn't match pictures online I see of raisin water though... mine has a lot of free floating fibers from the fruit it seems... very cloudy. Is this normal for date water and will it hurt my breads in taste or texture?
All my fruit is floating so I assume it is ready, but now what? How much do I use in a recipe? Do I need to adjust recipes in any special way to use this or can I just... use it like I would the dry variety? Sorry for the complete noob questions, but I am having a heck of a time searching for this info on my own.. been at it a week and I am so frustrated!
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Hi Peachy!
Ck this link for Yeast Water.
How much YW to use? It’s not an exact science. Do you have a recipe in mind or would you prefer we suggest one?
Danny
I made apple yeast water quite a few years ago and have kept it going all this time. If I want another fruit flavor I just take a few spoonsful of the AYW and add more water and the new fruit and leave it for 24 hrs in a warm place and then I have another flavor profile. Bananas are a great source of fruit water and the dates are also. It is fine to have debris floating in the water.
To see if it is ready to raise bread take = amounts of the YW and flour and stir it together. Place in approx 80 degree place and see if it doubles at least and how long it takes. That will tell you how strong your YW is.
To know when to feed your YW just watch the fruit. If it sinks take it ALL out and throw it away. Add new and more water if needed. I keep a qt at any given time and I feed it 1/2 of a chopped Granny Smith apple. There is NO reason to add any extra sweetener and the fruits are plenty sweet. Also you should never try to cap it off and increase the fizz ( alcohol production). Many folks do this and it is ALL wrong. You never want alcohol . You want yeast only. Leave it loosely covered.
You can store it in the fridge once it is raising the flour reliably. You take it out and remove the amount you want and add more water and fruit as needed and place back in the fridge. That's it. If the dead yeast is building up in the bottom of the container...it is a thick white residue, remove all the YW and throw out the residue. You don't want to stir that back into your healthy YW.
To substitute the YW for SD all you do it measure out the YW and flour to = the amount of SD called for in the formula you want to make. So if it calls for 150g of SD you take 75g YW and 75 g whatever flour you want to use and stir it and let it rise and then add it as the levain to the formula.
This is a good way to get started. You need to watch your dough as YW likes to rise faster and also likes a warmer temperature. Other than that you are good to go.
If you want to make a regular yeast bread recipe and only use YW all you do is sub some of your YW and some of your flour called for in the recipe and let it rise up and then add it to the recipe in place of yeast. As far as how much YW levain to add 20% of the flour weight is a good start. You can't really make a mistake. If you use a lot if will rise faster and if you use little it will rise slower.
Have FUN ! It isn't an exact science and it will be OK.
wow! thank you so much! That was wonderfully informative and easy to understand.
Glad to simplify the process. There is so much misinformation out there . It’s so simple. As with all baking of bread YMMV. ( your mileage may vary). Watch the dough not the clock. Be VERY flexible. Don’t try to replicate anyone’s bake. Do the same bake several times before moving on so you gain the knowledge base needed to experiment. Please ask if you have any questions. I love teaching baking. If you search 1-2-3 SD on this site ( use Google though as the TFL search is awful) you can simply sub your YW levain for the SD levain and end up with a wondrous non sour bread. Good luck and you can search my posts for ideas as well. c