March 7, 2014 - 3:14pm
Wild yeast over commercial yeast?
What is the difference between using these two? Is there an advantage, disadvantage? I am just curious because I have just been fermenting my bread dough for 12 - 24hrs using commercial instant bakers yeast. I'm wondering if I should be using a sourdough starter instead.
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IY ferment in the fridge at 36 F. insead of on the counteradn you just used a pinch of yeast as well. I think you are heading for goo dough city personally.
There are several differences between the two, which you can find by searching forums and reading old posts. However, here are a couple of really big ones. First, the commercial IDY will raise the dough much more quickly. Wild yeast takes several hours to ferment. If you are already fermenting 12-24 hours, your process may change some, but the timing can be kept pretty close to the same. As DA said above, hopefully, your long fermentation is happening in the fridge with IDY. But, with wild yeast, it could happen at room temp. Secondly, in 12-24 hours of fermentation with IDY, you still won't get near the flavor profile that you get with a sourdough starter containing wild yeast. The SD culture is already full of lactobacilli that work together with the wild yeasts to create a wide spectrum of flavor profiles, depending on how it is maintained and used.
There is really nothing wrong with using both types of yeast, for their strengths. You could use commercial yeast when you want a more predictable rise time, or when you want the flavor of the bread to come from the ingredients, rather than from fermentation, like for sweet breads. The SD is better for maximizing flavor complexity from few ingredients. Some of the best bread in the world has only flour, water, starter, and salt in it. There is even nothing wrong with putting a little commercial yeast in your SD bread, to make it rise quickly and predictably. Lots of bakeries make bread using sourdough only as a flavor ingredient, and commercial yeast as the leavening agent. You just don't want to put it in your starter itself. And, if you shorten the overall fermentation time of the SD bread by adding IDY, it will not be as flavorful as it can be, but it could still be more flavorful than using IDY alone.
Wait. I am using the commercial yeast on the countertop when I do the fermenting. I usually on put it in the fridge if I need to slow down the time. Ie. when I have to go out and can't prepare the dough for final proofing until later. Why does it need to ferment in the fridge, because that is not what I have been doing..
and methods. Usually, an IY recipe with a normal amout of yeast would be over proofed at 12 and way over proofed at 24 hours unless the IY was a just a pinch or the dough refrigerated right after mixing, Once we see what you are doing it will be easier to help you figure it out..
Happy baking
Basically 3c. white bread flour, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 1/2c water and 1/4 tsp instant yeast. I knead it using the dough cycle on my bread maker, which takes about 2 hrs. Then I put them into pans for proofing. I usually leave them 12hours on the countertop. Although sometimes I will put them in the food dehydrator if I need them to rise faster. Or I will put in the fridge if I need to slow down the fermentation. Ie. I need to let it go longer than 12hrs for example.
for the flour per cup (stir the flour spoon into the cup and scrape off method) and 236 g for water you are around 84% hydration which is very wet for a white bread dough. i wouldn't be at that high a hydration until I was around 40 - 50%% home milled whole wheat. You would definitely want to put it in a pan - or call it a ciabatta. A quarter tsp of yeast isn't a lot but with this wet dough, it should be very well proofed in 12 hours on the counter.at 70 F and resemble a big wet poolish. I think you would have better luck cutting the water down to 1 1/4 cups to get the hydration down to 70% or so for this bread.
Then it wouldn't take 2 hours of kneading in a bread machine to get the gluten developed. 2 hours is a lot of kneading and 1 hour and 20 minutes more than Michael Wilson would do slap and folds for his 100% spelt bread at 100% hydration.
I say, cut the water down and see how that works for you.
Oh wow. I didn't know any of this. Thankyou everybody for the feedback. I'm going to try some adjustments and see what happens.
What does over-proofing mean anyways. I'm a bit confused by that term.