February 20, 2024 - 2:29pm
Levure de boulanger (fresh baker's yeast) storage
I'm looking to find a definitive answe for how long levure de boulanger (sold in big butter block sizes or broken up into little cubes) can last when purchased, and also can it be frozen?
Any help would be great.
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I don't know. However stored in an airtight tupperware container in the fridge it can last a long while.
If it can be frozen then I would suggest you freeze it in pre-cut cubes. Defrost in the fridge as necessary storing it in an airtight container.
EDIT: According to this website advice from the manufacturer itself is that fresh yeast may be frozen: https://www.bonnebouffe.co.uk/product/baking/fresh-yeast-baking/fresh-yeast-12-x-42-gr-hirondelle/
My guess is a very long time in the freezer. I freeze commercial yeast and have never had it "go bad".
Have you called or emailed the manufacturer?
There isn't a manufacturer per se, this is the kind of thing you buy from a place that sells baking supplies, from a baker themselves, etc. From what I am understanding, this stuff is not to be frozen ever.
From the the date of production, fresh yeast has a shelf life of about 1-2 months under refrigerated conditions.
I concur that it is not suitable for freezing.
My experience is that, after purchase, it is good for a month in the fridge, if well sealed. It will still work after that, but the problem is that the viability declines so you need to use more for the same effect, but you don't necessarily know how much more.
This can be quite critical for products like pizza dough. Also you will tend to get dead yeast flavours in the product - a bit similar to active dried yeast, I guess, which has a high dead cell count. Lastly, use of aged yeast will give an increase in dough extensibility compared to fresh yeast.
I once got hold of some 25 gram cubes of fresh yeast in foil packs and that lasted well compared to buying it loose.
I also wouldn't recommend freezing, as, whenever I tried it, on thawing I ended up with a sludge of much reduced (and unknown) viability.
As an aside, I now sadly find it more or less impossible to buy fresh yeast in the UK without remote purchase.
Lance
The store around the corner from me has loads of fresh yeast and it's always stocked. I'll send you some if you wish. Often you can go into bakeries and ask for some even if they aren't selling fresh yeast per se.
Thanks Abe - very kind of you to offer!
Lance
Indeed, being fresh, the live cells will die overtime. From my experience I only found fresh yeast to be problematic when using poor quality off the shelf fresh yeast.
Sourced from a bakery where the yeast has been better kept and is fresh from the factory (1/2 days old), the quality is vastly superior and lasts very well. It looks different, smells different etc.
That's the big thing when buying fresh yeast, not knowing how old it is and how well it has been stored.
I suspect if you'd had the good stuff, your experience would be slightly different.
Michael
Levure de boulanger a.k.a compressed yeast can last 1-2 months refrigerated, it depends on the strain of yeast that you got. The fresh yeast that I purchase in our neighborhood bakery definitely lasts 2 months, but by 1.5 months mark it sometimes starts to grow a tiny island of mold on its surface, so I usually discard it by that time, or use all of it minus mold.
Freezing fresh yeast is normal, but the temperature is critical. When kept frozen at < (-18C) - ( -20C), i.e.below 0 deg F, it stays fresh for 1-5 years. The data shows that it loses barely 3% of its quality due to its surface drying out slightly in one year of storage below -20C (0 deg F). I have a dedicated stand alone freezer for flours and yeasts, so I set it below -20C and nothing happens to this yeast (or flours).
Source: Baker's yeast, article by Bernard Poitrenaud, Lesaffre International, France
in Handbook of Food and Beverage Fermentation Technology By Stig Friberg, Yiu H. Hui, 2004
The freezer in my refrigerator is self cleaning, i.e. it fluctuates between warm and cold temp to defrost itself, and it is not suitable for freezing fresh baker's yeast. You need a freezer that can be set at the lowest temperature possible and that can grow snow and frost inside.
So, yes, you can successfully freeze compressed yeast, but only in individual portions, because it doesn't keep well after defrosting.
Separate whatever you need from the block of the fresh yeast to last you about a month, and keep it refrigerated. The rest of the block of compressed yeast portion in smaller cubes, not more than what you need for each portion of dough that you usually bake in one day. Wrap each cube of fresh yeast in saran wrap and deep freeze them (under -18C/0F). It will definitely keep well frozen for a year this way.
Before using frozen compressed yeast, take a portion of frozen yeast and place it in refrigerator to slowly defrost for 24 hrs. It will then be exactly like fresh compressed yeast. The difference in fermentation rate between fresh 'fresh' and frozen for 1 year 'fresh' yeast is only 3%, you will barely notice it in practice.
Hi Mariana,
From your source, they assess fermentation power which I presume was done by measuring CO2 production and not by making bread?
In my experience, frozen fresh yeast tends to liquify upon defrost. This liquification is the result of ice crystal formation that causes autolysis of yeast cells and therefore cell death.
Yeast that has been frozen will still work but that's not the problem here. The autolysed cells release glutathione which weakens the gluten, causing the dough to slacken, limit gas retention and the dough to rise poorly. Certainly that has been my experience.
But as you point out the method of freezing is quite crucial. So, I would say, if the yeast doesn't liquify upon defrost then it's probably good to go.
Freezing dough is a different story especially if enriched. Presence of sugar and egg-yolks can provide a protective effect on yeast cells during freezing.
Michael
As has been mentioned, it is not usual/easy to find blocks of fresh yeast in the UK, so, because I like it much more than the dried stuff, I usually bring a supply of the kind of compressed fresh yeast one finds in the supermarkets in Italy when I am there and keep one block (x2 cubes of 1cm3) in the fridge to use as is and freeze the rest.
Without wanting to contradict those with better biological and baking knowledge than me, I have found no discernable difference in terms of dough formation, baking, and final product between fresh and frozen.
It's very easy to cut a chunk even from the frozen cube to use. Maybe it crumbles in the process, but I simply put it from frozen in the water that will be mixed with the flour and it dissolves directly, so don't have a chance to see if it liquifies or keeps it shape.
That is just my experience, so not intended as an authoritative answer.
Pretty much all bakeries in the UK use compressed (fresh) yeast. It's never been a staple of supermarket shelves but I would say it is quite easy to obtain fresh yeast in the UK. Like Abe has said you can ask for it over the counter at supermarket bakeries. From my experience, Morrisons just gave me some for free while Sainsbury's sold it to me for a very reasonable price per gram.
It's available, you just have to ask for it.
Hope this helps.
That's really good to know. I hadn't thought of asking at the in-store bakery. I'll need to go to one of the big stores where they still have them and see if I can blag some!
Otherwise there are some Italian delis that have the packaged cubes but charge an arm and a leg for something that is very cheep in Italy.
Also Wholefoods had some once I went there and it was not too expensive. Was sold loose by the weight rather than packaged. It was not too expensive and very good quality, but it's not convenient to go there every time I might want to bake something and I am not sure it is something the have regularly or was a one-off.
I asked for some fresh yeast in Tesco once. It was a big store with a bakery, but it turned out that they didn't actually make any bread on the premises - it was all freighted in pre-prepared, unbaked or par-baked and then baked in store. Probably just to get that fresh bread aroma!
Maybe Sainsbury's and Morrisons are better in this respect.
Lance
You may have been speaking to someone else in which case ignore my reply, but I'm not in the UK sadly.
I just saw yours and other responses just now which means I'm not getting notifications. Anyway, thank you for your help over on the Cordon Bleu question but here, this is really useful info. Sadly I think this probably requires having a dedicated controllable freezer. I don't think ours is. On the upside, we found a bakery here that DOES actually sell individual servings of levure de boulanger in whatever quantities you want. You just ask them for the amount you need and they put it in a little container and weigh it for you. I thought we'd never find it, the search was becoming hopeless.
Anyway, thank you. We'll continue buying in small quantities then from this bakery because we don't have that level of freezing at home.
I buy fresh yeast from Amazon or Bakery Bits or sometimes Shipton in boxes of a dozen individually wrapped 42gram blocks. I freeze them and they are fully active when defrosted. They last months in the freezer with no problem.
That's crazy, because everyone seems to say that that shouldn't work. You must have a very cold freezer.
Also, Bakery Bits and Shipton are in the UK. I'm very much not. :)