June 5, 2012 - 3:45am
Number of rises before shaping
For basic white french bread I normally do a single rise before shaping. Is there any benefit or harm in doing two rises before shaping? Is there a point were the yeast will run out of punch?
Also, is there a way to tell when fresh yeast will not work anymore, other than it's covered in mould?
cheers.
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It will also turn liquid or soft and leak hooch from the wrapping. It just looks bad and smells bad. It won't break of chunks nicely.
In dire circumstances, the bad outside parts of the yeast cube could be trimmed off and used. If it is less than the recipe, it takes just a little longer to get to the first proof. If you can get new fresh, that would be the way to go.
When the cube is still good, it will smell yeasty and have a dry sort of slippery feel from the starch in the cube. A wet/dry feel, a dusty look about it and will crumble when squeezed.
Yes, food to feed the yeasts does eventually get low as fermentation progresses and then the yeasts stop kicking out lots of gas. If you smell alcohol building in the dough, a sure sign the yeast is running out of "punch." I've done rises with one bulk, two bulk and if too much yeast is in it even 3 rises to get a super fine crumb. I once had a monster on my hands with rapid rise yeast and that dough had to be knocked down every 30 minutes until it was tame! Every time I came back in the kitchen it had risen over the bread pans and flopped over the sides! I wasn't used to such fast rises with my sourdough taking hours for the first bulk rise. :)