How to mimic the crumb and crust of a crusty sourdough loaf with yeast?

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tttt1010 on 19 Aug 2025 at 21:16

My experience with exchanging starter with yeast is that the loaf tends to be less dark and have a more dense crumb. Of course, yeasted breads must be fermented slightly differently which complicates converting a sourdough recipe because much of the mixing/fold happens during specific stages of sourdough fermentation. Does anyone have a good way of reproducing what is essentially a sourdough loaf, but not sour and made with dry yeast?

Here's a 33 minute video by Gluten Morgen in which he gets apparently similar results to sourdough using commercial yeast.  I haven't tried this yet, but it might be a good starting point for your goals.  I don't recall what he says about the sourness of the commercial yeast loaves, but he does discuss that toward the end during the taste test portion.

I have done this by using a very small amount of dry yeast. 1/4 tsp will do.  This will cause the fermentation to take a much longer time, much the same as sourdough times. Also include something that has live, low temperature lactic acid bacteria.  I used 1 tablespoon of liquid strained from yogurt. Or you could just use some yogurt without straining.

My loaves made like this get about 2/3 of the way to the full complexity of a sourdough flavor, without developing sharpness.

The other aspects you mentioned, crust darkness and crumb, are more about the typical "artisan" skills such as stretching and folding, the way the loaves are shaped and risen, etc. Details may vary but then they vary with different flours, starters, and levains anyway.

Tomp

If it's not sour - it's not sourdough. Replacing a starter with yeast is pretty easy. Adjusting your timing won't be. It'll come - just watch it. Enjoy!