Using Peter Reinhart's formulas in Whole Grain Breads without dry instant yeast
Hi!
I have been using the recipes in Whole Grain Breads by Peter Reinhart and love the bread. The idea is that he makes a soaker and either a biga or a wild yeast starter for each loaf and then combines them with more flour and a lot of dry instant yeast for the final dough for a quick rise and good loft. Anyway, I am having trouble getting instant yeast now so I was wondering how I should modify my procedure with his formulas? Should I create a mother culture using instant yeast and add that in the final stage. Should I omit the soaker and instead make a biga from a commercial instant yeast culture and a wild yeast starter and combine in the final dough? I also toyed with making a liquid culture of commercial instant yeast like I do for homebrewing using beer yeast and use that in the final dough or use the slurry. Not sure what would be best.
" Anyway, I am having trouble getting instant yeast now so I was wondering how I should modify my procedure with his formulas?"
I think Active Dry Yeast can be used if you first hydrate it well, and make sure it is well dispersed in the water, and in the dough.
Fresh cake yeast can also be used, but I forget what the weight ratio is to convert. I think one small cake package (approx the size of a bullion cube) is equivalent to a "packet" -- 7 grams, or .25 oz, or 2.25 tsp -- of dry yeast (either IDY or ADY). Fresh cake yeast also has to be dissolved well in the water.
Reinhart recommends using 25% (compared with instant yeast) more yeast if using active dry because about 25% of the yeast dies in the process making active dry yeast.
yeah but i dont have active dry yeast either. I have a small amount of instant yeast and need to propagate it!
You can make you own yeast from lots of stuff.
There are methods on this site. Search for raisin water and potato flakes. The latter is a good way to extend instant yeast.
There are guides on the internet to go the whole hog and dry your potato flake instant yeast extension back into dried yeast.
CoronaVirus man. I already did all.this :p
Now I have 5 types of yeast to use.
wow! that's crazy. awesome. i'll look up the raisin potato flake thing. thanks!
In the book, IIRC, he describes how to make a sourdough starter, and how to make a loaf using the starter, instead of instant or commercial yeast.
sort of yeah. but i want some strong commercial yeast to add to really give good loft quickly but in a propagatable form.
I'm interested in the same thing. This topic is discussed in some detail in the following post on this site:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/34282/modifying-peter-reinharts-recipes-sour-dough-starter
thanks i'll check that out. i'm not a purist at all; i just am running out of yeast while waiting for my instant yeast to arrive and thought it would be wise to find a way to free myself from commercial instant yeast while still getting good loft in 100% WW bread...
Yeast water works great and is easy to propagate, but I'm not sure how well it would play with those recipes since it is adding yeast with the water, as opposed to later.
It might work to refrigerate your soaker immediately after mixing to hold back fermentation and your biga soon after mixing to keep it from progressing too far. Or you could build a yeast water pre-ferment and add it when you combine the biga and the soaker.