Why won't my apple yeast water dough rise?
Admittedly I am a novice breadmaker. Never made a loaf in my life. So I decided to go the eccentric purist route, naturally. However, I believe my lack of experience and over romanticized ideal of simple breadmaking is getting in the way. I've tried making apple yeast water from granny smith apples and managed to get a nice strong vinegary smelling concoction that I brewed up in a mason jar with an air lock. Yesterday I used about a pint of it as a replacement for yeast packets and water. The dough had a nice consistency I thought so I let it sit for an hour to rise......but sadly it didn't. So with my need for instant gratification I decided "oh well let's just pop it in the oven and see what we get. Well what we got was a flat sourdough pita-like bread that was very dense and hard to cut....but it smelled very nice. What went wrong guys? I let my apple water ferment for 6 days and even began to see a mother forming at the bottom of the jar. I keep telling myself "it can't be this complicated, hell the pioneers were making this stuff with far less equipment that I have available to me today. I would greatly appreciate any and all advice given. I have an adventurous spirit and am willing to experiment....and fail.....if only for educational value.
...and how it is to be used.
First of all, before anything else, is your yeast water nice and bubbly? A good sign it is ready to go.
My understanding of yeast water (although I have yet to try it) is that you prepare a preferment very much like a starter in a sourdough recipe. So take a simple sourdough recipe...
500g flour
300 water
10g salt
150g starter
When it comes to yeast water you'll need to prepare that 150g "starter" by mixing 50g flour + 50g yeast water the night before and wait for the yeasts to inoculate the flour. By next morning (or evening if you start in the morning) it'll be bubbly and ready to go into the main dough.
Another thing is, is your timing. Yeast water is slow just like a sourdough is. So while the 150g yeast water starter is now the replacement for commercial yeast it will still be a lot slower. So you'll be looking at a timing very much like a sourdough if not a little longer.
So when your Yeast Water Starter is ready then proceed something like this...
1. Make your dough with your starter
2. Knead till full gluten formation
3. Bulk Ferment till doubled - This will take a few hours.
4. Knock back and shape into boule or batard
5. Final proof till almost doubled - again this can take around 2 hours give or take
6. Bake
This is very much the process of a sourdough except using yeast water. It also needs to be quite warm for it to be effective.
I bake exclusively with sourdough at the moment and intend on going into yeast water sometime. I have read up on it and that, I think!, is the gist of it.
Well the apple water did have tons of bubbles but upon reading your post I see that I quite possibly missed the most crucial step in inoculating the flour the night before with the apple water. You're right I should probably have more patience with it.
What is your recipe? Perhaps we can try something different. I'm no expert when it comes to yeast water but I do make sourdoughs so i'll try and use that as a stepping stone. Trial and error. I just think you misunderstood and treated it like commercial yeast. Sourdoughs and Yeast Water need time. It's not through lack of patience on your part. Rather its because you started with yeast water not having experienced anything like natural yeast before.
I used roughly 2 cups bread flour 1 cup all purpose flour and a pint of apple water yeast. I kneaded the dough for about 20-30 minutes and left to ferment an hour. After an hour I kneaded some more and heated the oven to 450 degrees and baked for 30 minutes. As I said it rose minimally and was very dense but it did have a lovely cheesy/buttery aroma that had my kids asking me if I was popping some popcorn.
convert this to grams and will be back with a converted recipe. Brb...
From what I've found online it looks like one cup of flour is approximately 125g.
but when converting water from a pint to grams it said 473g which would have made your dough far too hydrated.
I think a total revamp is needed. We'll base a new recipe on a basic sourdough. I'll keep the hydration low so you can do this freestanding but a banneton will be beneficial.
RECIPE:
500g bread flour
270g warm water
10g salt
150g starter (75g flour + 75g yeast water)
METHOD:
Night Before (about 12 hours before you start baking): Mix into a paste 75g bread flour with 75g yeast water in a clean glass jar. Cover (so that flies can't get in but gas can escape). And place in warm area. About 12 hours later it should be bubbly and active. Proceed onto the main dough...
MAIN DOUGH
In a dough bowl measure out 270g warm water.
Add the 150g yeast water/flour starter and mix thoroughly till fully distributed.
In another bowl measure out 500g bread flour and mix in 10g salt.
Add the flour/salt mixture to the yeast/water mixture.
Combine into a dough.
Knead till full gluten formation (about 10 minutes).
Cover the bowl and let rise till doubled (with sourdough about 3 hours but you'll have to judge this one).
when ready tip the dough out onto a floured bench and shape into a boule.
[At this stage you can either transfer it into a banneton if you have one. If you don't then onto a prepared baking tray]
If using a banneton then place inside a plastic bag or if free standing then cover with a light damp cloth for final rise.
Final proof till almost doubled (again, with sourdough it'll take 2 - 3 hours but you'll have to judge this).
When ready tip the dough out onto a prepared baking tray if you're using a banneton, score the dough and bake in a preheated oven.
If proofing on a baking tray just score the dough and bake in a preheated oven.
What do you think?
Yeast Water doughs love the warmth! Will work better. Try and find a nice warm places for the fermentations.
Wow I must say I'm impressed by your efforts. I feel like I'm indebted now. I will try this tonight and post some results later this week. Thank you so very much for taking time out of your life to help a rookie out. You give me faith in humanity.
Looking forward. As I've said this is purely theoretical knowledge based on my sourdough baking but understanding that yeast water uses the same principles. It's my pleasure!
- Abe.
If you have enough yeast water then fine to proceed but don't forget it takes a couple of days to inoculate more water if you have run low.
the YW Primer to make sure that you actually made YW. You make a preferment just like sour dough i would do 75 g each of flour and yeast water, cover the mix and let it sit in a warm place 78 F for 12 hours. if it doesn't double in 12 hours your YW is weak or if it doesn't rise at all then it isn't YW. This is what you put in the bread and you develop the glute,. bulk ferment and final proof like any dough but it will be a bit slower especially if the YW is young like yours.
Happy YW bread making