December 16, 2014 - 12:24pm
Todays Packaged Yeast
Greetings,
I baked my first loaf of bread as a kid back in the 60's. And have baked bread on and off throughout my life.
I remember when proofing yeast many years ago, the aroma would fill the kitchen.
And when the bread baked, it had that wonderful bready smell and the final loaves tasted like....bread.
What is up with yeast these days? Odorless and tasteless when used in traditional recipes?
The bread just tastes like baked flour, milk, butter and salt.
I have tried every brand of yeast out there with my traditional recipes and am greatly disappointed with tastelessness and no aroma.
Does todays yeast do better if proofed the day before?
Should I leave the dough in the fridge over-night?
What has changed with yeast these days?
Thank You
Share
that you will seldom see in "the states." Too bad I had my old phone... It was a delivery truck for fresh yeast! Ha! and Aaah! I was thinking all about the fresh loafers who love the stuff! Anyway... the various blocks were pictured on the sides and back of the truck. Na ya.
Yeast just keeps getting faster, and doesn't need "proving" like it used to. Heck, it gets mixed into the flour nowadays. Click on the yeast "FAQs" up in the header, info on site. ...And the flours! Well, there are differences. Like you said bread is tasteless when it ferments fast and therein lies the solution to your problem. Use less yeast and ferment longer. Draw the hidden flavours out of the flour as much as you can. Avoid the rapid stuff if you can for your particular flour. Reducing the amount of yeast, makes the yeast go thru several cycles of growth and multiplying, that will give you some of your yeasty aromas and get you more flavour in the bread. Also baking temperatures around 375°F or lower are good for aromas. Browning the crust is also flavour enhancing.
You can also slow down the fermentation chilling the dough in the refrigerator (we often call this "retarding" the dough) mixing up a pre-ferment (like it implies, part of the flour and water with just a pinch of yeast) to ferment overnight before adding all the recipe ingredients. (I know I'm missing a few techniques here...) and then you can try sourdoughs. (ahem) Wild or tame ones. There are also yeast waters (early actively fermenting wines) that can add interesting nutty flavours, colours and soft textures. Any of these techniques can be looked up on site or elsewhere and employed to bring out hidden flavours.
And there are combinations with other types of flours! and malted flours! and sprouted flours! and roasted flours!
Look around and see what you can find. Also different waters... potato and vegetable waters, teas and other liquids can help some weak flavoured flours. The world cabinet is open!
Ok, catch you later, Welcome to the Fresh Loaf.
Hope I've helped you out some. I'm just a wee little member here. Floyd Mann runs the site.
-Mini Oven
Thank You Mini Oven,
I haven't seen fresh yeast in decades.
DH is a home brewer and saves his yeast and repitches it,
but I have no idea how much to use.
I'll experiment with that once I am able to recapture the
aroma and taste I remember from my early baking years,
with just standard ingredients.
I'm going to retard a batch of dough this weekend.
I'm using SAF yeast. The vacuum seal was broken during shipping
but the yeast proofed well in warm water with sugar.
(an inch+ of foam within 5 minutes)
When you mention pre-ferment, is that also what is referred to as
making a sponge?
I have another issue; cold granite counter tops. Even with a silicone mat,
I can feel the dough cooling as I knead it. I guess I'm going to have
to look around for a large board.
Kitchen table is tiled..can't use that!
I'll have time this weekend to search the forum here
and thank you very much for replying.
I love all the great photos here too.
If you could only have one bread book
as a beginner, which one would you choose?
:)
Thank you!
I use the counter above the dishwasher when shaping yeast dough. It's well insulated, so the counter doesn't get warm, but it does get above room temp. It also holds the temperature for quite a while, so I don't have to schedule dishwashing according to breadmaking.
That'll work too! Thanks.
I saw a video where a baker used an electric heating pad to set her dough
on (covered with a damp cloth). That would warm a spot on the counter top too.
Wait 'til you make a laminated dough! I just made kouign amann for the first time and came out perfectly. That is partly due to using 84% butter, but rolling the dough on the very coldest part of the counter definitely made it easier.
Janet
but not everywhere! :) Wouldn't let hubby do it. Anyway, if you have a lap top you can park it where you plan to work your dough, some heat goes into the stone or open the cupboard doors and let the air under the counter warm up. You can also lay a hot water bottle on the "spot" ahead of time and cover with a towel. I tend to use bowls and move my dough around to the warm spots.
I suppose if you let your sponge ferment long enough it becomes a pre-ferment.
You might want to store part of the instant yeast package inside a jar and freeze it. Keeping a smaller jar where it is handy.
You might want to type "good beginner bread book" into the site search engine and see what suggestions turn up. I would head for a text book and get background info on materials and methods. A good foundation puts wings under your desires to soar. ...the journey begins. ..or continues.
There are some home brewers here too, hope they give you some tips on collecting some of hubby's yeasty beasties.
You are most welcome!
Mini
Thanks again, Mini!
I do have a lap top desk at the end of the counter top and its lower
(yay!) than the standard counter top. Which is great for this shorty.
And it stays warm!
Good idea, thanks!
As soon as I tested the SAF, I put most of it in a mason jar and vacuum sealed the jar and put it in the freezer.
I keep a small dark glass container on the top shelf in fridge. When I plan to make bread, I take it out and "room" it up.
Back in the day, our gas ovens had pilot lights; that and a small bowl of warm water was a great place for rising dough. I have had to adapt the elec. oven for that. I have an Excalibur
dehydrator and they say it is great for rising dough, but I haven't tried it yet.
(was checking out the proofing box that they sell on KAF website--maybe later!)
We are going to have wet weather this weekend, so I'll have time to review some books.
The right hand side bar looks like a good place to start.
As an aside, I'm experimenting with fermenting some fruit to see if I can make yeast water.
Thanks again, and I appreciate your poetic comment on a "good foundation putting wings under desires"!
Regards,
BnB
You have access to a homebrewer? nice! I haven't been able to do a batch in ages.
The healthiest and stongest yeast is going to be collected from the top of the fermenting beer, the "krausen" that forms on the top in the early stages of fermentation is what you want (day 2-6 approximatly). Just a teaspoon or two of that yeastly foam into approximatly 30% of the total flour weight for the bread recipe, combined with the same amount (by weight) of water, and let that poolish ferment 8-12 hours, or until it looks ready. It's pretty hard to gague how much yeast is in the krausen, for a few reasons, but using it is a poolish is pretty safe. No need to add extra yeast during final dough mixing, there will be enough in the poolish.
Ale yeast strains are interesting to bake with, they were selected for their ester profile and alcohol production, not their CO2 volume and speed of reproduction, like commercial bread yeasts are. Personally I love working with them, they slow down the recipe a bit from one planned with standard bread yeast, but I don't find it a problem at all.
Another note, if he does all grain brewing, the spent grains are awesome in bread. Good luck!
using spent grains in bread for some reason but the animals love it :-) The hops SD starter I whipp madeed up the bread ....bitter .....just like it makes beer:-)
Thank you so much for the info on using brew yeast.
I'm surprised also about the use of spent grains! I would think they have lost their flavor and texture, but I guess not! DH (the home brewer) was wondering about this as well.
Very interested in all of this and appreciate your time and info!
can be found (or ordered) at your local library so don't forget to knock the dust off your library card. And... we've accumulated a lot of info on this site as well. I often type Q's into the site search box. :)
Most of my breads are sourdough, but I do use dried yeast occasionally and I've been using Bioreal organic yeast for some time now. Easy to get here in the UK, not sure if you can get it in the US though. I buy the dried stuff which is an "instant" type - can be used directly in the flour, or you can proof it if you want (which I find works marginally better for very enriched doughs like brioche). They also sell fresh which I'm about to try but it's really not economical to use in the quantities I use, sadly.
However the good thing about it is that it does smell old-fashioned yeasty unlike some of the more commercial shop-bought yeasts.
http://www.bioreal.de/en/home.html
There really seems to be a shortage of other organic yeasts... Anyone know of others?
-Gordon